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Africa's Share of Global Trade Remains Under 3 Percent Despite AfCFTA-Report
March 4, 2024--A report by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Africa's has stated that contribution to global trade remains at less than 3%.
The report on assessment of progress on regional integration in Africa shows Africa's regional integration agenda is progressing, but slowly.
It added that the programme for infrastructure development in Africa has seen mixed results in its efforts to enhance infrastructure.
While progress has been made in the areas of roads and ICT, advancements in rail transport and energy infrastructure have been minimal with financing posing a significant hurdle.
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Source: allafrica.com
Africa: Paving the Way for Digitizing Africa's Economy
February 23, 2024--Africa is the continent with more than 1.2 billion people, endowed with rich natural resources among others, vast arable land, livestock, mines, rivers, oceans and lakes with their marine life. However, though it is rich with such resources, the continent is unable to exploit the resources fully due to lack of technology, finance and well trained man power.
As the result, it has remained one of the pauperized in the world.
Africa has only three percent share on the world trade. It mainly exports mines, crude oil and livestock in their raw form to the foreign market and obtains small amount of hard currency which doesn't cover its imports' bill which again leaves it in negative trade balance.
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Source: allafrica.com
African Development Bank-High Cost of Living in Africa Could Cause Unrest
February 20, 2024--The African Development Bank is warning that the rising cost of energy, food and other commodities in several African countries, including Angola, Ethiopia and Kenya, could trigger social unrest. Already, people in Africa's most populous country, Nigeria, have been marching to protest the high cost of living, prompting the government to release grain from the national reserves.
The African Development Bank's notice was contained in its biannual Africa Macroeconomic Performance outlook publication released last week.
The bank said in its 2024 forecast that energy and food price increases-along with a currency depreciation in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria-could spark internal conflict, despite Africa showing overall economic growth.
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Source: allafrica.com
Zimbabwe: New ETF Gives Maximum Foreign Exposure On the JSE
February 12, 2024--Unless you're bullish on SA Inc, there's little reason to buy the Top 40 these days, which makes Satrix's JSE Global Equity ETF Index enticing
Simply buying the index on the JSE via an exchange-traded fund (ETF) or index tracker may be cheap (as fees are far lower than those charged by actively managed funds), but the recent performance of the broad South African market has been pedestrian.
The Satrix 40 fund delivered a performance of 8,77 percent last year, with the JSE All Share Index (Alsi) up 2,9 percent.
A new ETF from the largest passive manager in the country, Satrix, offers investors exposure to locally listed shares but with a bias to global companies. In recent years, the weighting of inward-listed multinationals has been reducing, with these now only making up around a quarter of the Alsi. This will reduce even further in March when the All Share switches to the shareholder-weighted indices (SWIX) methodology.
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Source: allafrica.com
Digital Transformation Drives Development in Africa
January 18, 2024--CHALLENGE
Accessible, Affordable, and Inclusive Broadband
The availability and use of digital technologies are strongly linked to economic growth, innovation, job creation, and inclusion, at both the national and regional levels. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, still faces significant challenges in digital development.
The region's digital infrastructure coverage, access, and quality still lag other regions. At the end of 2021, while 84 percent of people in SSA lived in areas where 3G service was available, and 63 percent had access to 4G mobile coverage, only 22 percent were using mobile internet services. The gap between coverage and usage is similarly large for broadband, with 61 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa living within broadband range but not using it.
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Source: worldbank.org
Africa: A Quick Look At Africa 2024 Through GDP's
January 4, 2024--With the arrival of 2024, various financial institutions have disclosed their projections for the African continent in the new fiscal year. In line with the predictions of experts, there is a growth expectation of 4.2% in the general perspective for the African continent (IMF). Private consumption and investment are predicted to drive an acceleration in gross domestic product (GDP) for roughly 80 per cent of countries by 2024.
While the growth rate in the continental economy was 3.9 per cent throughout 2022, this number decreased to 3.6 per cent in 2023. Among the main factors of this performance decline are the interest rates increased by the central bank against global inflation and the profound impact of the war in Ukraine on global commercial activity and the resulting intercontinental trade vulnerabilities.
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Source: allafrica.com
Africa: Brics Expands With Five New Members
January 2, 2023--The Brics group of countries has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The announcement on Monday coincided with Russia assuming the Brics chairmanship on 1 January.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said the inclusion of the five nations as full members of Brics-a group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa-reflects the growing influence of the association, now comprising 10 countries.
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Source: allafrica.com
Turning the Corner, time to move from reforms to results
December 13, 2023---The Government of Nigeria avoided a fiscal cliff by implementing bold reforms, including ending the gasoline (premium motor spirit, PMS) subsidy, and shifting to a unified, market-reflective foreign exchange (FX) rate. These essential reforms entail painful adjustments.
They have led to an increase of retail gasoline prices by an average of 163%.
The naira has depreciated against the US dollar by approximately 41 % in the official market and by about 30% in the parallel market. To reap the benefits of the bold reforms and difficult but necessary economic adjustments now underway, it is essential to sustain and fully implement the reforms and take complementary actions.
This is the key message from the December 2023 edition of the Nigeria Development Update, titled "Turning the Corner". The report adds that the recently launched cash transfer intervention to cushion the impact of increased gasoline prices on the poor and vulnerable is providing welcome relief to a growing number of households, with 5 million households expected to be covered by the end of December.
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Source: worldbank.org
African Development Bank Revises Economic Forecast for Africa downwards amid continued global shocks
November 29, 2023--The African Development Bank has revised its short to medium-term macroeconomic forecast for Africa, for 2023 and 2024 downwards to 3.4% and 3.8%, from 4.0% and 4.3%.
The slightly lower figures reflect the persistent long-term effects of COVID-19, geopolitical tensions and conflicts, climate shocks, a global economic slowdown, and limited fiscal space for African governments to adequately respond to shocks and sustain post-pandemic economic recovery gains.
The updated data were published on Thursday, 29 November in the 2023 Africa's Macroeconomic Performance and Outlook (MEO) update, a follow-up to the Bank Group's 2023 Africa Economic Outlook released in May.
While inflationary pressures are receding globally, they are persistent in Africa and continue to weigh heavily on the continent's short-to-medium-term economic performance, according to the update. Africa's inflation is now projected to average 18.5% and 17.1% in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
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Source: afdb.org
South Africa Economic Update: Raising South Africa's Economic Prospects by Curbing Crime
November 22, 2023--The fourteenth edition of the South Africa Economic Update, Safety First: The Economic Cost of Crime in South Africa, discusses South Africa's economic prospects and highlights the critical need to address the challenge of high crime, to reduce its adverse effects on the economy and society at large.
South Africa's GDP growth has returned to its pre-pandemic trend and is expected to increase by 0.7 percent in 2023 and is projected to rise to an average of 1.5 percent from 2024 to 2026 due to the gradual easing of electricity supply constraints. Accelerating the implementation of structural reforms will boost South Africa's growth potential.
The challenge of high crime rates undermines the country's economic dynamism, with an impact estimated to be at least 10 percent of GDP every year. The report includes a focus chapter on the economic impact of crime in the country. High rates of crime damage the economy and contribute to misallocation of resources, through stolen property, protection costs, and missed economic opportunities.
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Source: worldbank.org
