Africa Briefs

SA to relax visa rules to boost investment, tourism

South Africa will ease some immigration rules, including agreeing visa waiver agreements with more countries, in an effort to boost investment and tourism, home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba said yesterday.

The changes are part of a broader economic turnaround programme announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa last week as his team seeks to drag Africa's most developed economy out of recession.

Visitors from India and China, highlighted by Ramaphosa as important investment growth areas, will have travel regulations relaxed from next month, including allowing applications for 5-year multiple entry visas.

Gigaba said negotiations were also being finalised to conclude visa waiver agreements with more than a dozen countries across Africa, the Middle East and eastern Europe, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Qatar and the UAE.

Much-criticised rules on traveling minors will be simplified, he said.

Tourism contributes more than R400 billion to South Africa's economy, or around 8% of GDP. – Nampa/Reuters

Senegal puts supergrain on New York menus

A gluten-free grain that grows in Africa's impoverished and semi-arid Sahel region is taking off as a health food in New York, the Senegalese chef who masterminded its revival said on Monday, outlining plans to almost double production by 2023.

Pierre Thiam began exporting fonio to New York last year, hoping to help smallholder communities in the Sahel, which stretches from Mauritania and Mali in the west to Sudan and Eritrea in the east and is home to more than 100 million people.

The grain is now on the menus of more than 60 New York restaurants and will soon be in all the city's Whole Foods stores, according to an executive at Yolele Foods, the company he co-founded.

Thiam hopes to expand annual production from 600 000 tonnes to a million tonnes over the next five years.

He wants to have 7 000 families in Senegal producing the crop by 2020, and also plans to expand production to Burkina Faso. – Nampa/Reuters

Ghana keeps policy rate unchanged

Ghana's central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 17% on Monday as expected, mindful of possible inflationary headwinds as the dollar strengthened, governor Ernest Addison said.

The decision to hold rates steady, the second this year, would also help to cushion any spillover effect from fuel price increases and a potential trade war between the United States and China, Addison said.

He said the most recent forecast showed the rate of disinflation slowing marginally on possible second-round effects of recent increases in petroleum prices, exchange rate depreciation and tax increases.

Ghana is a major commodity exporter but its cedi currency has been unstable since May, touching new lows this month, as investors pulled away from emerging market assets.

Ghana's public debt rose to US$33.9 billion as at July, representing 66% of GDP while net reserves stood at US$3.8 billion or two months' import cover, down from US$4.1 billion in June. – Nampa/Reuters

Egypt inks power deal with Siemens

Egypt has signed a US$352 million contract with Siemens AG and Siemens Technologie to manage three gigantic new power plants built to plug a gap in Egypt's electricity needs.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi opened the power stations in July, which were built by Siemens at a total cost of 6 billion euro (Us$7 billion).

Egypt commissioned the plants at a time when the Arab country was suffering rolling blackouts and industries were forced to closed down for months at a time.

The two companies will manage, operate and maintain the three power stations, billed as the biggest in the world when construction began in 2015, at the new administrative capital east of Cairo, at Burullus in the northern Nile Delta and at Beni Suef south of Cairo.

Each plant generates 4.8 gigawatts of power. – Nampa/Reuters

World bank disburses loan to Tunisia

The World Bank has disbursed a US$500 million loan to support Tunisia's budget, an official source told Reuters.

The disbursement raised Tunisia's foreign exchange reserves to the equivalent of 78 days of imports, up from the equivalent of 68 days seen in recent weeks.

The North African country’s economy has been in crisis since the toppling of autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, with unemployment and inflation shooting up.

Tunisia plans to issue US$1 billion in bonds in early October to help cover 2018's deficit/

Tunisia expects economic growth to accelerate to 3.5% next year from an expected 2.9% in 2018, driven by a recovery of the tourism industry and an expanding agricultural sector. – Nampa/Reuters