Author: Nathanael Mavinga

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has cut its base lending rate by 75 basis points to 11.25 percent. In a Thursday evening statement, the CBK said there was still room for looser policy to aid economic growth despite inflation being at a low of 2.8 percent. “The Committee decided to lower the Central Bank...

The electrification of the cities of Gemena (Sud-Ubangi), Bumba (Mongala) and Isiro (Ituri) in DR Congo will cost 90 million USD under an agreement signed on June 5, 2021 by the Minister of Hydraulic Resources and Electricity, Olivier Mwenze Mukaleng, and CEOs Simon Hodson from the utility company Gridworks, Miguel Zaldnar from Aee Powers and Marc Alberola from Eranove. Signed in the presence of the governor of Sud-Ubangi, Jean-Claude Mabenze, and the representative of the governor of the province of Mongala, the agreement follows a call for tenders launched in September 2018 as part of the electrification project. of these…

The airlines Congo Airways and Kenya Airways signed on April 22, 2021 in Kinshasa, a memorandum of understanding in the aviation sector validating the principle of strengthening their regional partnership. Signed by the Managing Director of Congo Airways, Désiré Balazire, and that of Kenya Airways, Allan Kilavuka, this memorandum of bilateral cooperation is based on two major objectives after identifying areas of mutual interest for the two carriers. This collaboration aims to foster the exchange of knowledge, experts, innovations and best practices through technical cooperation. It also aims to strengthen regional partnership in the greater East African region through commercial…

Judge Dieudonné Kaluba was elected president of the Constitutional Court of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on April 20, 2021 in Kinshasa by his peers. He succeeds Benoît Lwamba Bindu who had resigned from his post for health reasons. The new president was appointed in 2020 by President Félix Tshisekedi as a judge of the Constitutional Court. He was elected head of the institution after a ballot pitting him against three other candidates, namely interim Funga Evariste, Jean-Pierre Mavungu and Corneille Wasenda. Born in Mbuji-Mayi (a city in the center of the DRC) in February 1966, Dieudonné Kaluba has…

The work of the 12th session of the general assembly of the Union of African Shippers’ Councils (UCCA), in collaboration with the Office de gestion du freight multimodal (Ogefrem), was opened on Tuesday, April 20 in Kinshasa by the chief by the Congolese State Félix Tshisekedi, current President of the African Union, in the presence of representatives of 19 UCCA member countries. “I believe that the coordination between the actions of the shippers and those of the general secretariat of Zlecaf will allow the achievement of optimal conditions for African economic integration”, declared the Congolese president, paraphrasing Kwame Nkrumah, one…

The protection of the investments expected between Qatar and the DRC, the modernization, the development of airport and port infrastructures, the strengthening of the capacities of sectoral experts as well as aeronautical and maritime cooperation, between the DRC and Qatar, constitute the basis of many agreements and memoranda of understanding that the Congolese Minister Marie Tumba Nzeza of Foreign Affairs, and the Qatari Minister of Transport and Communications of Qatar, Jassim Saif Ahmed Al-Sulaiti, signed on March 29, 2021 in Doha, in the presence of President Félix Tshisekedi and the Emir of Qatar, Tamim Ben Hamad Al-Thani. In infrastructure, the…

DR Congo-based mining company AVZ Minerals to sell Manono tin (Tanganyika province) to commodity giant Noble Group Holdings based in Hong Kong as part of the “lithium and tin Manono” project . A direct debit agreement has been concluded between the two parties for this purpose. The company intends to raise the necessary funds to be able to start construction of the mine in Manono. “In line with our recent lithium drawdown agreements, this tin concentrate agreement with Kalon will help the company meet certain preconditions that are demanded by our potential financiers,” said AVZ Minerals chief executive Nigel Ferguson.…

The Fédération des entreprises du Congo (FEC) and the Tunisia Africa Business Council (TABC) undertake to encourage and facilitate actions aimed at promoting economic partnership between Congolese and Tunisian companies, and strengthening relations between the two organizations, the development and widening of the relations of their members in Tunisia and DR Congo, under the terms of a three-year partnership agreement signed by Kimona Bononge, Managing Director of the FEC, and Anis Jaziri, President of TABC, Thursday 25 March in Kinshasa. According to information, the two Chambers of Commerce have come together to establish the terms of their collaboration, counting on…

The African Continental Free Trade Area (ZLECAF) will soon be endowed with tariff concessions and a preferential tariff in the customs field when the resolutions resulting from the work of the experts meeting in Kinshasa (DR Congo) for a closed workshop will be implemented. March 25, 2021. These experts discussed the updated Customs Tariff and aligned with the 2017 version of the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, the Republic’s lists of tariff concessions in the 2017 version of the Harmonized System, based on the draft tariff concessions in the 2012 version of the HS, previously prepared by all national…

The protection of investments on both sides of the two countries is at the center of the 3rd Tunisia-DRC Economic Forum which is held in Kinshasa from March 22 to 27, 2021 and in which 55 women and men economic operators from different sectors participate. “Tunisia’s solidarity with the Democratic Republic of Congo continues today, in particular by welcoming Congolese students in Tunis to universities and public establishments for quality education. The Congolese government is delighted that solidarity between the two countries is doing well, ”said Congolese Foreign Minister Marie Tumba Nzeza in her opening speech. In turn, the Tunisian…

Equity Group Holdings (EGH), a commercial bank operating in East and Central Africa, is benefiting from a USD 100 million (Kenyan Shilling 11 billion) loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to serve small and medium enterprises to terms of a level 2 facility agreement. “Together with the African Development Bank Group, Equity Group will be firmly positioned to help MSMEs (medium and small businesses) stay the course during the Covid-19 pandemic which has slowed their economy with an impact on corporate cash flow. We have seen the impact of interventions in favor of our MSMEs during this period. They…

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Treasury bill issues amounted to CDF 566.8 billion (USD 306.047 at the average budget rate of FC 1852 per US dollar) in 2020, including 15.5 billion in interest withheld against subscriptions received of 713.5 billion, while the announced amount was 994.5 billion CDF, according to the Central Bank of Congo (BCC). “Compared to the cash flow plan forecasts (PTR), the bid volume represented a coverage rate of 81.9%. For reasons of debt sustainability, the Treasury was sometimes called upon to reject certain offers. However, in the absence of a mechanism to stimulate the…

The National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will identify all aspects of the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (ZLECAF), in order to consider its smooth implementation for the economy of the country, announced its president, Christophe Mboso N’kodia, Monday March 15 in Kinshasa. “As part of our representation mission, we plan to organize two major activities in the next few days. The first will be devoted to the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area, ZLECAF. In the light of the views of experts from the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the DGDA, the…

The new country director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Gabriel Leos, arrived in Kinshasa on February 28, 2021 from New York (USA). He replaces Egoume Bossogo who arrived at the end of his term in the Congolese capital. The DRC’s new respondent to the IMF will have to be part of a new dynamic desired by both parties. The institution had conditioned the granting of a formal three-year program accompanied by the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) by the preparation of a realistic 2021 budget project, the restructuring of the Central Bank of…

The Federation of Congo Enterprises (FEC) asks Prime Minister Sama Lukonde, who spoke with his delegation on February 26, 2021 in Kinshasa, to consider “the economy as the top priority”. “We asked the Prime Minister to make the development of the economy his priority because the missions assigned to him by the Head of State, in particular peace, security, education and grassroots development require that we have a strong economy. We also discussed with him the priority subjects including the reform of taxation, financial management and improvement of the business climate which involves reform of the justice system and the…

In DR Congo, the three-month treasury bills served to two bidders at an interest rate of 27% and auctioned on February 23, 2021, brought in 9 billion FC (4.5 million USD) out of the 20 billion FC (10 million USD) expected, i.e. a coverage rate of 45%. Added to the four lots of Treasury Bonds launched at the beginning of February 2021, the Congolese government will have raised 52.06 billion FC (26.03 million USD) out of the 80 billion FC (40 million USD) targeted, compared to the month January, during which the government raised only 6 billion FC (3 million…

The government of the DR Congo issued on February 16, 2021, Treasury bills which enabled it to borrow 19.5 billion FC (9.75 million USD) through these three-month financial securities served at two bidders at an interest rate of 26%. With the three batches of Treasury bills launched at the beginning of February 2021, the government raised FC 43.06 billion (USD 21.53 million) out of the FC 60 billion envisaged, while in January, it only raised 6 billion FC (3 million USD) out of the 40 billion FC targeted, ie an achievement rate of only 15%.

The DR Congo government expects 20 billion CDF (10 million USD) from the auction of three-month Treasury bills, scheduled for Tuesday, January 26. This operation is part of a program of the executive which has planned, for this month of January 2021, to borrow 40 billion CDF (20 million USD) on the internal financial market. Of the 10 million USD targeted on January 19, 2021, only 3 million had been raised. It should be noted that it was following the weakness in revenue mobilization that the government launched, in October 2019, the Treasury Bonds to diversify its sources of financing…

Airlines in Africa recorded a US $ 14 billion loss in passenger revenue as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reported on Friday, January 15, 2021. According to its statistics, these companies recorded a drop of 78 million passengers and 58% of their overall capacity, compared to 2019, pushing four carriers to suspend their operations and two others to go into receivership. “The 2019 traffic volumes in Africa would not return before 2023 when the continent is expected to experience a late recovery in its financial performance,” projects the International Air Transport…

The turnover of the banking sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was 10 billion 406.5 million USD in 2020 against 8 billion 519.9 million USD in 2019, representing a growth rate of 22.1%. On the occasion of the ceremony of the exchange of greetings for the agents and executives of the Central Bank of Congo (BCDC) on January 20, 2021 in Kinshasa, Governor Déogratias Mutombo also indicated that at the end of November 2020, “the aggregate net income of all commercial banks operating in the DRC reached 67.4 million USD, despite the covid-19 health crisis that hit the…

Treasury Bills brought in 551.3 billion FC (275.650 million dollars on the domestic financial market out of 566.8 billion FC targeted. The total amount of repayment was estimated at 570.3 billion FC in 2020 while the outstanding debt under the new Treasury bills increased from CF 112 billion in 2019 to CF 108.5 billion in 2020, the government said. In accordance with the forecasts of the 2021 Budget, the State intends to issue Treasury Bonds and Bonds for a net amount of CF 252 billion. Confronted with the weakness of the mobilization of public revenue, the Congolese government launched in…

In DR Congo, 15 billion FC (7.5 million USD) are expected Tuesday, December 15, 2020, from the auction of three-month treasury bills. For this month of December 2020, the payment will be made Thursday, December 17, 2020, announces a press release from the Ministry of Finance. On the domestic financial market, the Congolese government plans to raise 60 billion FC (30 million USD). The Treasury Bonds launched on December 1 and 8 have already brought in 27.5 billion FC out of the 30 billion FC targeted. The government, following the weakness of public revenue mobilization, launched, in October 2019, Treasury…

The Economic Conjuncture Committee (CCE), meeting on December 8, 2020 in Kinshasa, was concerned about a “small drop” in exports of mining products linked to the policy of restocking stocks operated by mining companies. The CCE announced that overall, the macroeconomic framework remains stable in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, there is some acceleration in the rate of product price formation on the markets due to the speculative movements that accompany According to sources, mining production has increased and is generally performing well. A tonne of copper has passed the US $ 7,500 per tonne mark, and the price…

The city of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, will host the 48th session of the SADC parliamentary forum which takes place from December 4 to 5, 2020 by video conference. MPs and Senators from Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and other SADC countries will interact with their Congolese counterparts around various regional integration themes aimed at to consolidate the unity of 345 million inhabitants of whom they are the representatives, at the People’s Palace in Kinshasa, seat of the Congolese parliament. During the works, the fight against poverty will also be addressed at a time…

In DR Congo, the auction of treasury bills scheduled for Tuesday, December 1, 2020 is worth 15 billion FC (7.5 million USD). These financial securities, with a three-month maturity, must be subscribed on the same day before 11:00 a.m. with the Central Bank of Congo (BCC), the finance ministry said. He recalls that, since September 30, 2020, the government and the Central Bank have opened the subscription to Treasury Bills to any interested person and no longer only to commercial banks. In December 2020, the government plans to borrow 60 billion FC (30 million USD). The weakness of revenue…

Direct insurance abroad is prohibited for anyone living on Congolese soil, announced the Authority for the Regulation and Control of Insurance in the Democratic Republic of Congo (ARCA). “This decision is taken following resolutions relating to the fight against the evasion of insurance premiums taken by the government of the DRC at the 50th meeting of the Council of Ministers. The only insurance operators qualified to carry out insurance operations in the DRC are those on the official list published by ARCA, “she explained in a press release issued on November 5. As “regulator and controller of the insurance sector”,…

The three-month Treasury Bills auction which will take place on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, will cost 25 billion FC (12.5 million USD), a statement from the Ministry of Finance announced on Monday, November 2. “Subscribers have until Tuesday before 11:00 am to submit their offers through the dedicated electronic platform,” he explains. Following the weak mobilization of public revenue, the Congolese government launched, in October 2019, Treasury Bonds to diversify its sources of financing to meet its still high public spending. A Treasury Bond, which is issued through the Treasury channel, is a debt security repayable at maturity. When an…

The President of the DR Congo, Félix Tshisekedi, is staying in the capital of the Republic of Congo where he arrived Monday October 27, 2020 at the invitation of his counterpart Denis Sassou Nguesso to participate in the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the “Brazzaville Manifesto ”. He is one of the Heads of State participating in this event, namely Presidents Faustin Archange Touadera of the Central African Republic and Idriss Deby of Chad. At their side, there will be the Premier of Cameroon Joseph Dion Ngute and his counterpart from Gabon Christine Ossuka Raponda. Also present, France represented…

The government of DR Congo will launch an auction of Treasury Bonds, Tuesday October 27, 2020, for a value of 15 billion FC (7.5 million USD). “Candidates for these three-month titles have until Tuesday before 11:00 am to submit their bids. From now on, Treasury Bonds are open to all financial institutions as well as to interested persons, ”announced a statement from the Ministry of Finance. A Treasury Bond is a debt instrument issued by the Congolese State and repayable at maturity. The government issues these debt securities through the treasury. When an economic operator or an individual buys a…

Sharing experiences on the fight against COVID-19, the establishment of a global system for the rapid detection of epidemics and participating in the meeting of the board of directors of the Raoult Foundation justify the presence in France of the famous Congolese virologist Jean -Jacques Muyembe, arrived in Marseille at the invitation of the famous professor of medicine Didier Raoult. Didier Raoult, born March 13, 1952 in Dakar (Senegal), is a French specialist in infectious diseases, professor of microbiology at the Faculty of Medicine and at the University Hospital Institute of Marseille (IHU). With his chloroquine treatment, Didier Raoult crystallized…