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CAIRO, Egypt, Capital Markets in Africa: Above the counter at Manal’s electrical store in Cairo are the lanterns and string lights that will illuminate homes during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan that began this week. Below it are dollar bills destined for the black market. The businesswoman is the kind of opportunist currency dealer authorities targeted in March when they devalued the pound and raised interest rates to draw dollars into a formal economy starved…

LAGOS, Nigeria, Capital Markets in Africa: Russia isn’t buying into the optimism that a rally in oil has legs. Supply disruptions including Canadian wildfires and militant attacks in OPEC member Nigeria have driven prices higher, with the improving outlook for crude not grounded in fundamentals, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said at a government meeting in Moscow on Thursday. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the same event that the situation was reminiscent of a rebound in the second quarter of last…

KIGALI, Rwanda, Capital Markets in Africa: The tiny nation of Rwanda is pursuing a local technological revolution in a bid to transform its largely agrarian society into the equivalent of an African Singapore. Since President Paul Kagame led his Rwandan Patriotic Front to power in 1994 after a genocide that claimed as many as 800,000 lives and cut economic output in half, the East African nation has pursued policies aimed at encouraging investment in and developing its ICT industry. The…