Weekly Roundup | 10.22.2024
Your curated selection of weekly Africa business and investment headlines.
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Headlines
Taiwan Says China Urged South Africa to Order Office Moved
Can AI Help Africa Close the Development Gap?
📸 Sub-Saharan Africa: A Look Ahead to 2025
Nigeria’s Largest Flour Miller Plans $1 Billion Investment in Boost to Tinubu
🎦 Peter Zeihan on Why Lobito Corridor Matters to U.S.
Opinion: Can South Africa Support Palestine While Supplying Israel with Coal?
African Online Retailer Jumia to Exit South Africa and Tunisia
📸 Key Minerals in an Electric Vehicle
PWC Projects Zambia’s Copper Production Will Fall Short of Govt’s 2031 Targets
Nigeria Rejects Shell's $1.3 Billion Oil Asset Sale
📸 Cape Town Port Benefiting From Suez Canal Woes
Teck CEO Says Canada Must Spend More to Erode China’s Critical Minerals Dominance
🎦 African Countries With Highest World Bank Debt
Africa
📰 Taiwan Says China Urged South Africa to Order Office Moved
In response, Taiwan may tell South Africa to relocate its representative office out of Taipei, the official said. Other steps could include tightening the visa application process for South Africans and cutting the number of English teachers from the nation.… Read More
📰 Can AI Help Africa Close the Development Gap?
To optimists, AI presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to go one step further. Machine learning, they argue, can turbocharge the leapfrogging phenomenon by putting revolutionary tools into the hands of individuals, businesses and states.… Read More
📸 Sub-Saharan Africa: A Look Ahead to 2025
📰 Nigeria’s Largest Flour Miller Plans $1 Billion Investment in Boost to Tinubu
Flour Mills plans to invest at least $500 million in its sugar operations in Niger state to increase production to more than 400,000 tons a year, from 100,000 tons currently. Another $100 million will be used to build a cassava-processing factory to end imports of cassava starch into the country, while its breakfast cereal offering will be expanded… Read More
🎦 Peter Zeihan on Why Lobito Corridor Matters to U.S.
"The idea that the United States has is that if we can rehabilitate the Lobito Corridor, which dates back to the Portuguese occupation a century ago, well then there is another route for this stuff (critical minerals) to get out and it would be going to the Atlantic instead of the Indian Ocean basin and that's closer to the United States and Europe as opposed to China." … Read More
📰 Opinion: Can South Africa Support Palestine While Supplying Israel with Coal?
Despite having taken Israel to the International Court of Justice over genocide, South Africa is now the country’s main coal supplier after Russia. More than 15% of coal consumed by Israel has been of South African origin… Read More
📰 African Online Retailer Jumia to Exit South Africa and Tunisia
Jumia's remaining markets include Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria. South Africa and Tunisia accounted for only 2.7% of the group’s total orders in the first half of 2024. Zando.com was the brand Jumia used in South Africa. Chinese fast-fashion e-commerce retailers Shein and Temu have increased competition… Read More
📸 Key Minerals in an Electric Vehicle
📰 PWC Projects Zambia’s Copper Production Will Fall Short of Govt’s 2031 Targets
Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) has projected that Zambia will only produce about 1.7 million metric tonnes of copper by 2031, falling well short of the government’s target of 3 million tonnes.… Read More
📰 Nigeria Rejects Shell's $1.3 Billion Oil Asset Sale
The sale to the Russian investment group was rejected due to the government’s contention that the buyer, Renaissance Group, is not qualified to manage the assets.… Read More
📸 Cape Town Port Benefiting From Suez Canal Woes
📰 Teck CEO Says Canada Must Spend More to Erode China’s Critical Minerals Dominance
Jonathan Price said that while both the U.S. and Canada have focused on developing the electric vehicle and battery manufacturing sectors in North America, support for mines and mineral processing continues to lag. The CEO pointed out that Canada has committed only $2.9 billion in spending on critical minerals over eight years, while China spent $15 billion on the same in 2023 alone… Read More
🎦 African Countries With Highest World Bank Debt
In 2022, across 48 African countries, the collective debt amounted to roughly $125 billion, 31% of the global total debt of $408 billion owed to the World Bank.