Author: Jean-Mermoz Konandi

The World Bank has announced the appointment of Hafez Ghanem, his new Vice President for the Africa Region. This development expert, Ph.D. from the University of California, has thirty years of experience within the institution. Until then, the World Bank’s vice-president for the Middle East and North Africa, the new boss of the World Bank’s Africa department, who has taken office since 1 July, will be in charge of managing a portfolio of 600 projects representing more than $ 71 billion in commitment. In its communiqué, the institution asserts that it intends under this mandate to strengthen its action to…

Côte d’Ivoire’s renewable energy strategy could generate $ 9 billion in investment opportunities in the sector by 2030 according to Alzbeta Klein, IFC’s Director and Head of Climate Business, the International Finance Corporation. “Côte d’Ivoire aims to be an economic hub for West Africa and a forerunner in the field of renewable energies. With the implementation of effective government policies, achieving the renewable energy target can create a $ 9 billion investment opportunity for the country by 2030, “he said. , while the country has just acquired, this July 5, a roadmap to produce 42% of its electricity from clean…

Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara has just dissolved the government in the late morning of Wednesday. He immediately reappointed the current Prime Minister Gon Coulibaly who is in charge of forming a new team that will be composed of “personalities of the RHDP and civil society”. This dissolution comes in a crisis context within the RHDP’s political alliance. On June 17, the PDCI, had postponed its membership of the political group in power after the presidential election of 2020, waiting to see his ally of the RDR (the party of Alassane Ouattara) give up to present a candidate for this election…

It will be a world first. Côte d’Ivoire is preparing to launch the world’s first power plant based on cocoa biomass. The project was the subject of an agreement signed June 2 between the Ivorian and American authorities in Abidjan. Initiated by SODEN, the renewable energy company, the project will consist of producing electricity from the main rejection of cocoa, the pod, which can be valued and provide an additional source of income for farmers. The USDTA, the US Agency for Trade and Development, has granted under this agreement a grant of nearly $ 1 million to the project for…

The Radisson hotel group is now eyeing Côte d’Ivoire, which has become its main target in French-speaking Africa. At the meeting of the CITHA, a conference dedicated to tourist and hotel investment in Africa held on June 26 in Abidjan, Erwin Garnier, the group’s director of development – sub-Saharan Africa, raised a corner of sailing on the group’s ambitions in the region. Francophone Africa region. Two years after the opening of Radisson Airport Abidjan, a 5-star hotel with 240 rooms, its first project in Ivory Coast, the global hospitality giant is clearly satisfied with its investment to build on new…

The state-owned Versus Bank, pending privatization, will see its capital more than quadruple to 3.5 billion to 14.850 billion FCFA, announced the Ivorian government this 27 June. This capital increase will be in favor of the public pension fund, the CGRAE. For the authorities, the objective is to “bring the bank’s financial situation in line with the new prudential banking regulation system of the WAEMU” and “consolidate the growth momentum of this public bank”. At the end of the operation, the Ivorian state will only hold 52.89% of the bank’s share capital, compared to 47.11% for the CGRAE. Versus Bank,…

Announced since the beginning of the year, Volkswagen’s assembly plant in Rwanda officially opened on 27 June. An initial cost of $ 20 million, the project located in the suburbs of Kigali, will allow to assemble the models Polo and Passat at first. The plant will produce 1,000 vehicles annually – a figure that is expected to rise to 5,000 – for a local market of 12 million people with 200,000 cars in circulation. Volswagen wants to find outlets for individuals, but also put on a car-sharing system on the model of Uber, Reuters believes. It is the fourth factory…

The German manufacturer Mercedes e announced Tuesday an investment of 600 million euros in its South African factory East London, during a visit of the Head of State Cyril Ramaphosa. This new investment will allow local production of the new generation of C-Class models for export. According to the manufacturer, the current facilities dedicated to passenger vehicles will have to grow by two thirds. Established in the country since 1958, Mercedes has made South Africa one of three world class C production bases alongside Germany, the United States and China. In 2017, the production volume reached 110,000 vehicles. Recall the…

After the Chinese StarTimes, Canal + will face a new competitor with the arrival soon of the bouquet Free of the French businessman Xavier Niel. According to the Letter from the Continent, the latter, with the support of the Ivorian President, obtained its approval of the HACA (High Authority for Audiovisual Communication), the regulator of the sector, for the launch of its subsidiary. Free Ivory Coast will broadcast TV channels via a satellite package by the end of the year and distribute channels like BeIN Sports.

Ivorian Okou Gérard Mathieu N’Katta has been appointed Managing Director of Equity Assurance Liberia, the newest subsidiary of the SUNU group in Liberia and one of the country’s leading insurers. His appointment was made public late last week by the chairman of the board of directors of the company, Steve Kolubah, at a press conference. This arrival comes to end the interim management set up after the acquisition, at the beginning of the year, of a majority share (63%) of Equity Assurance Liberia by the pan-African group active in 14 countries on the continent. In the same vein, the subsidiary…

The European Commission announces on June 22 that it has been endorsed by the Council of the European Union to launch negotiations on a new partnership agreement with the 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Signed in 2000, the current agreement known as the Cotonou Agreement expires in February 2020 and its provisions provide for the opening of negotiations on a future partnership by the end of August 2018. This new round of negotiations will open while the issue of EPAs, Economic Partnership Agreements, which were to take over from Cotonou under the command of the WTO (World Trade…

While Africa has affirmed its commitment to play its part in the global mobilization against climate change, the question of financing this ambition continues to arise two years after the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The subject was at the center of the 4th edition of the Green Finance conference or international conference on financing green growth in Africa held this June 19 in Abidjan. How to finance economic growth that is respectful of the “green and inclusive” environment, with “local content pushed”? This is the challenge of the Abidjan meeting presented by Félix Bikpo, General Manager of the African…

Ethiopian Airlines has launched since June 10 the first direct flights between Africa and Chicago, the third largest city in the United States, from its base at the Addis Ababa International Airport. “Chicago will be our fourth destination in the US and our seventh in America (…) We will close a critical gap in air connectivity as our flights will be the only direct service between Chicago and Africa,” Tewolde Gebre-Mariam said. , CEO of the Ethiopian Airlines group, during the opening ceremony of the line on June 12 in the Ethiopian capital. “Chicago is the hub of our Star…

On June 15, the Ivorian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Airbus on a collaborative framework agreement to support the development of an aerospace industry in Côte d’Ivoire. An industry identified by the Ivorian government as strategic for its economic development. Under the agreement, the two sides will work together to explore ways of cooperating to realize this vision of the Ivorian authorities. “We are committed to realizing our vision and making Côte d’Ivoire a hub for aerospace technology in Africa,” said Ivorian Vice President Daniel Kablan Duncan. “Through this Memorandum of Understanding, we will work closely with the…

The Swedish car manufacturer SCANIA sent a mission to Abidjan late last week as part of its project of bus rapid transit system or BRT it intends to establish in the city. Led by its West Africa director, Fredrik Morsing, the delegation met Adama Koné, the Ivorian minister in charge of Economy and Finance, on 7 June. The BRT is a bus transportation system with dedicated lanes to efficiently provide mobility in large cities. The project which has passed the technical study phase, proposes to create “a smart and complete BRT system including buses, a secure ticketing system, a customer…

Côte d’Ivoire will host the first conference on African tourism and hotel investment (CITHA) on 26th June, organized by Proparco, Horwath HTL and Radisson Hotel Group. It is a day of debate and discussion – around five roundtables punctuated by networking moments – that will cover the entire value chain on hotel and tourist property operations in Africa. The topics will focus on the trends and prospects of the hotel sector in Francophone Africa, financing, issues or the setting up of a hotel project. Hotel groups, lenders, institutions, banks and investment funds, engineering firms, real estate developers, development companies, law…

The Ivorian Minister of Crafts, Souleymane Diarrassouba, launched on May 28 the preparations for the 3rd edition of MIVA, the Ivorian market for handicrafts, scheduled from September 28 to October 7 in Abidjan. A meeting that will bring together around 1,000 exhibitors from around the world. In three editions, the MIVA will take a new step this year to position itself as one of the main African platforms for promoting “cultural expression, creativity and know-how of actors and professionals” of African crafts . From 650 exhibitors from 21 countries during the last edition of 2016, this year, 1,000 exhibitors from…

NSIA Banque Ivory Coast will distribute 12 billion FCFA of dividends, or 18.3 million euros, for the 2017 financial year. The decision was taken in favor of its first ordinary general meeting held on May 30 in Abidjan. The meeting, which approved the financial statements for the year ended with a net profit of 19 539 704 927 billion FCFA, or 29.79 million euros, saw the remarkable presence of more than 500 shareholders. A craze that can be explained by the arrival of new holders at the bank’s tour de table following the OPV carried out last July 3rd. Shareholders…

BICICI (International Bank for Commerce and Industry of Côte d’Ivoire), a subsidiary of BNP Paribas, recorded a decline in its net profit of 2.76 billion FCFA (4.2 million euros) the year 2017. The bank has indeed made the year with a net profit of 9.29 billion FCFA (14.16 million euros) against 12.046 billion FCFA (18.36 million euros) at the end of 2016, a drop of nearly 23%. This result contrasts with the evolution of profit in 2016, which had increased by 2.84 billion FCFA (4.3 million euros), an increase of 31% compared to 2015 when the establishment had collected 9,202…

The Chinese giant CSCEC (China State Construction Engineering Corporation) has just won the market of the fourth bridge in Abidjan, a book that will link the popular town of Yopougon Plateau, the country’s business center. The project was awarded following a limited international tender process, which Financial Afrik was able to consult the results published at the end of the week. Endowed with a loan of $ 263.7 million, a loan from the African Development Bank (ADB), the project will help relieve traffic between two major poles of activities and beyond facilitate the link between the parties north and south…

The director general of the Post of Côte d’Ivoire, Isaac Gnamba-Yao, will finalize today in Paris, on the sidelines of the VivaTech exhibition that opens its doors, an important partnership for the effective start of the project of inclusive distribution of postal parcels via digital addresses. It is an innovative project, operated in partnership with Qwant, Be-Bound, What3Words, BNP Digital and Innova Côte d’Ivoire, which will allow to assign a unique digital address to each piece of land in the Ivorian territory. to directly deliver to specific locations. Initiated by the British firm What3Words, this system associates with each space…

The international exhibition Agrofood & Plastprintpack West Africa will be relocated from Accra to Abidjan for the first time in its fifth edition scheduled for November 20-22, 2018. Initiated since 2013 in Ghana by the fair trade fairtrade specialist German, the event will be held in the Ivorian capital “at the request of exhibitors and associations”, Côte d’Ivoire being considered a stronghold of the agricultural sector and industries West Africa, explained the organizers. The fair covers the entire value chain “from field to fork” (agriculture, food processing and packaging, ingredients, bakery and pastry and food and hospitality). on the one…

The Kuwaiti firm NAS (National Aviation Service) concessionaire of the public service of assistance at the stop at the international airport of Abidjan, agreed on an adjustment of its tariffs as a result of negotiations with the Ivorian government. The announcement was made on Wednesday by Bruno Koné, the government spokesman. NAS will “reduce by 30% the ceiling prices of the package of basic services,” said Minister Bruno Koné. This is one of the expectations of the airlines that considered the ground handling charges of the Abidjan airport expensive. The challenge for the government is to improve the competitiveness of…

The project of creation of the Caisse of Deposits and Consignations (CDC) obtained, this Tuesday, May 22, the approval of the commission of the economic and financial affairs of the national assembly, after that of the government last January. A new step that paves the way for its adoption in plenary session of parliament, the last lock before its launch. The project presented yesterday to MPs by Adama Koné, the Minister in charge of Economy and Finance, aims to allow the Ivorian state to have more comfortable long-term financial resources for its investments in strategic sectors, but also support the…

“We can not afford instability or recklessness in the banking and financial sectors. Because any loss of confidence in the banks can only produce a ripple effect on the stability of the economy as a whole. It is through this statement made at the opening of the 3rd CEO Summit of Ghana, in Accra on May 21-22, 2018, that Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo affirmed her favorable position on the reforms undertaken by the Central Bank of Ghana (BoG). These reforms include the requirement for a minimum capital of 400 million Ghanaian cedis, or about 90 million dollars, for banks operating…

The Ivorian cashew industry is in turmoil. Hundreds of trucks loaded with nuts have been queuing for weeks in front of the exporters’ warehouses in the port area of ​​Abidjan, because they can not find buyers. The reasons for this blockage are, on the one hand, the quality of nuts considered as bad and small and, on the other hand, the official purchase price considered too high in view of the evolution of the international market. Exporters, mostly Indian and Vietnamese operators, refuse indeed the nuts of less than 46 grams, then sold at low prices, indicate sources cited by…

The Egyptian holding company Beltone Financial announced at the end of the week, in a statement quoted by Reuters, its intention to take a majority stake in Oragroup, the holding company at the head of the Orabank network. The challenge for the Cairo-based firm, focused primarily on MENA, North Africa and the Middle East, is to gain a foothold in sub-Saharan Africa through the banking group in 12 countries in West Africa. of the Center. Beltone Financial, founded in 2002, is a subsidiary of Orascom Telcom Media and Tech, the group of Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris. It is a financial…

NSIA Banque Ivory Coast has invited the main Management and Intermediation Companies (SGI), the Management Companies of UCITS (SGO), the insurance companies as well as the pension funds and social welfare institutions to a breakfast of exchanges as part of the publication of its results, Thursday, May 17, 2018 at the Rotonde des Arts Contemporains located in the Plateau. This meeting served to shed light on the bank’s performance in 2017 and the first quarter of 2018, and to present the institution’s challenges and prospects for this year and the years to come. come. It must be said that NSIA…

The American international law firm Orrick has recruited Yacouba Coulibaly, formerly Senior Manager in the legal department of Afreximbank, the pan-African import-export bank, for its affiliate office in Ivory Coast, Orrick-RCI. Yacouba Coulibaly has a long experience in financing projects in Africa, in infrastructure (road, rail, airport), energy, agriculture, gas and oil, etc. Formerly of Hogan Lovells in Paris, he is the second associate who joins the Orrick-RCI team in the last six months, after the arrival of Patricia Amand, legal advisor, specialized in regulation in the telecommunications sector and ICT. Before joining Orrick, she worked at the National Agency…

Abidjan or Dakar? The Moroccan bank CFG Bank is studying the issue in the perspective of its project to establish a market in the WAEMU zone. The subject was entrusted to Bloomberg by Laureen Kouassi-Olson, the representative in West Africa and Central Investor Capital Amethis Finance. Amethis has just made, with AfricInvest, its entry into the round table of CFG Bank which has garnered 300 million dirham, or about 32 million dollars. A treasure of war that should bring the new ambition of the firm that is in line with other Moroccan financial groups such as Banque Centrale Populaire (head…