Burundi |

World Bank-Funded $340m Rusumo Power Plant Construction to Begin

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Facility at Rusumo Falls will take 3 years to complete, provide 80 MW for Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania, according to World Bank statement. Plant will be managed by Rusumo Power Company, a utility jointly owned by the three nations African Development Bank is financing a further $121m for transmission lines that will connect power plant to national grids JV between Chinese companies CGCOC Group and Jiangxi Water & Hydropower…

Burundi Cracks Down on Currency-Changers Amid Dollar Shortage

Posted on by The Editorial Team

BURUNDI, Capital Markets in Africa: Burundi’s police said they closed 15 foreign-exchange offices and arrested 12 money-changers as the East African country, struck by more than a year of unrest, struggles with a dollar shortage. The actions were taken against speculators who committed “economic crime” by not complying with the official exchange rate, police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye said Tuesday on his Twitter account. An inadequate supply of dollars from Burundi’s central bank has forced companies…

New IFC and Ecobank Facility to Finance SMEs in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States in West and Central Africa

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Burundi, (Capital Markets in Africa) -IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, parent company of the Ecobank Group and leading pan-African full-service banking group, today announced the launch of a $110 million risk-sharing facility that will increase access to finance for small and medium sized enterprises in fragile and conflict-affected states in West and Central Africa. The target countries face extreme and persistent poverty exceeding 50 percent of their populations,…

Burundi’s Political Crisis Is Credit Negative

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Bujumbura, Burundi (Capital Markets in Africa):-Last Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that more than 105,000 people had fled Burundi (unrated) to neighbouring countries to escape political violence after three weeks of demonstrations and a failed coup last Wednesday. The worsening political situation in Burundi threatens to disrupt economic activity and administrative stability, weaken the political will and capacity to implement much-needed structural reform, and jeopardise multilateral and bilateral donor support. Additionally,…

IMF lends Burundi $6.9 mln to support economy before elections

Posted on by The Editorial Team

BUJUMBURA (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday it would lend Burundi $6.9 million to shore up the aid-dependent central African nation, months before a presidential election in June. Tensions are running high in the land-locked nation, which is tentatively emerging from more than a decade of civil war, because of a dispute over whether current President Pierre Nkurunziza can run for another term in a vote on June 26. The IMF also…