Tag Archives: economy

  Caxito, Angola | AFP |  Boxes of still-green bananas were shifted one-by-one from a towering stack of crates into a refrigerated shipping container. Stamped “From Angola, with love”, the fruit is shipped to consumers 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles) away and are part of Luanda’s drive to diversify its economy …

  Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe’s new finance minister Mthuli Ncube announced a five-percent cut to senior government officials’ salaries on Thursday in a bid to mend the shattered economy. Ncube’s budget also set out plans for the biometric registration of civil servants to weed out “ghost” workers who …

Former Angolan president rejects he left state coffers ’empty’ Luanda, Angola | AFP |  Former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos on Wednesday refuted allegations by his successor Joao Lourenco that he left the country’s finances “empty”. The row comes just over a year after Dos Santos stepped down in …

Luanda, Angola | AFP | “Things are going badly,” said Delta, sitting on a stool and glancing at a bag stuffed with Chinese mobile phones. As one of scores of traders trying to legally sell her wares in one of Luanda’s most famous markets, known as “The Congolese”, the 32-year-old …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP |  South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma on Tuesday threw his weight behind the ex-head of the country’s tax collection agency who was recently sacked by President Cyril Ramaphosa. The move pitted Zuma directly against his successor Ramaphosa, who came to power in February when …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Since starting treatment five years ago, 50-year-old Alice Chenyika kept her blood pressure under control by adhering to doctors’ strict instructions to take two daily doses of nifedipine. Now Zimbabwe’s worsening economic crisis has pushed prices up, and the medicine is far beyond her reach …

Tripoli, Libya | AFP | Queueing up outside banks in Tripoli, Libyans say they have little hope of an end to the political and economic turmoil shaking their country, on the eve of international crisis talks in Italy. Accompanied by his five-year-old son, architect Mohamad Kredigh was hoping to get …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | On the campaign trail for re-election in February, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari may have spoken too soon when he backed an initiative to hike his country’s minimum wage by a whopping two thirds. Buhari, who had been advised on the wage by a negotiating committee …

Gondar, Ethiopia | AFP | The presidents of Somalia and Eritrea met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Friday to cement regional economic ties as relations warm between the once-rival nations. Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki arrived in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar …

Moscow, Russia | AFP | Moscow is intensifying efforts to wean its economy off the dollar as Washington considers tough new sanctions that could deny Russia access to foreign debt markets and cut its banks from the greenback. President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly slammed the US unit’s dominance on the …