Africa Business News

President Muhammadu Buhari through the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shheu, on Monday said he has signed the instrument of accession of the agreement for the establishment of the African Trade Insurance Agency.
Shehu disclosed this in a statement titled ‘President Buhari signs instrument to enable African Trade Insurance Agency’.
The presidential aide said the agreement and the agency were registered with the secretariat of the United Nations in accordance with the Charter of the UN.
The statement said the agency when executed will acknowledge previous multilateral efforts made by African states towards regional economic integration through co-operation in trade liberalisation and development so as to attain sustainable growth, promote economic activity and create an enabling environment for foreign trade, as well as cross-border and domestic investments.

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Trademark registration documents showed that Beijing-based ByteDance, the owner of global short video hit TikTok, is taking steps to move into the online stock brokerage and wealth management business in Hong Kong.
the city’s online intellectual property database showed that ByteDance applied last December to register a trademark called Songshu Zhengquan, which translates to Squirrel Securities, in Hong Kong.
According to the database, the trademark application is being examined and areas of business it applied for include computerized financial information services, stock trading, brokerage services and stock exchange quotations.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

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A bipartisan group of 13 U.S. senators have asked the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office (USTR) to remove 25% tariffs imposed in October 2019 on European Union food, wine and spirits, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The tariffs, in retaliation for EU subsidies on large aircraft, hit French wine, Italian cheese and single-malt Scotch whisky, as well as cookies, salami, yogurt, olives from France, EU-produced pork sausage and German coffee.
Seven Republican and six Democratic senators in a letter to USTR on Friday said that American restaurants, retailers, grocers, importers and distributors are experiencing severe economic hardship due to the increased cost of goods.
The senators noted demand for these goods has declined, leaving importers and distributors with months’ worth of product, much of it perishable, in storage and in transit with no clear end date for the COVID-19 pandemic.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

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According to reports, Twitter has approached TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance to express an interest in buying its US operations.
Video-sharing platform TikTok has been at the centre of fierce debate in recent weeks and takeover talk.
Last week US Donald Trump ordered firms to stop doing business with TikTok within 45 days over security concerns.
Tech giant Microsoft is the front-runner to buy TikTok but now Twitter has emerged as a possible suitor.
According to sources quoted in the Wall Street Journal, it remains unclear whether Twitter can afford to buy TikTok from its Chinese owners and can complete a deal within the 45-day window.
The value of TikTok's US operations are unclear but estimates put it at tens of billions of dollars.
Twitter's market capitalisation is about $29bn (£22bn), dwarfed by Microsoft's at more than $1.6tn.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

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Kenya’s Central bank on Friday said Co-operative Bank of Kenya will buy 90% of micro lender Jamii Bora Bank and the deal will complete this month, marking further consolidation in the East African nation’s banking industry.
Co-op Bank’s takeover of Jamii Bora was first announced in March and the deal is due to complete on Aug. 21, the central bank said.
Co-op Bank, owned by Kenya’s co-operative movement, is the country’s third-biggest bank by market share with nearly 10% of the domestic market and 159 branches across Kenya and South Sudan.
Jamii Bora, which is mainly focused on lending to micro-enterprises, is the second-smallest lender in Kenya with a market share of 0.09% and 17 branches across the country.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

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The Bank of Uganda left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 7% during its August 2020 meeting, after slashing it by 100bps in June to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy. Policymakers said that economic activity is estimated to have contracted by 3.2% in the second quarter of 2020 as a result of a combination of coronavirus containment measures and floods.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

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South African investigators are seeking to recover more than 400 million rand ($23 million) from German software firm SAP for two government contracts they allege were entered into unlawfully, court documents seen by Reuters show.
SAP, a major global business software company, said it was reviewing all its public sector deals in South Africa dating back to 2010, but it has not publicly flagged wrongdoing over the agreements in 2015 and 2016 with the Department of Water and Sanitation.
According to the court papers, Investigators say those contracts should be declared invalid because government regulations were contravened, reported here for the first time.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

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The central statistics agency CAPMAS on Monday said Egypt’s annual urban consumer price inflation fell to 4.2% in July from 5.6% in June.
The agency said Month on month inflation increased to 0.4% in July from 0.1% in June.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

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The Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Rev. Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh, has emphasized the need for fund managers to leverage on technology for business growth.
According to him, the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) in the securities industry has become increasingly critical considering the impact of the novel Coronavirus on the financial sector and transactions in general.
The SEC Director General, who was the guest speaker at the 2020 GIMPA Law School Webinar Conference, also cautioned financial institutions against cyber fraud as the COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a significant increase in fraudulent activity.
He also urged businesses within the sector to frequently review their business models to meet the changing trends.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

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The World Bank said it has approved $114 million to help Nigeria tackle its coronavirus pandemic.
The money comes in the form of a $100 million loan and a $14 million grant to be split between Nigeria’s 36 states and federal-level procurement of medical equipment, tests and medicine.
Africa’s most populous country has recorded more than 45,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 930 deaths, but low levels of testing have left a muddy picture of the outbreak’s severity.
Shubham Chaudhuri, the World Bank’s director for Nigeria, in its statement said Nigeria has ramped up its efforts to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, but more needs to done at the state level, which are at the front line of the response.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/newscast-africa/support