With the recent election of reformist prime minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, Ethiopia’s economy is set to liberalise after 27 years of state monopoly, opening up one of Africa’s fastest growing and underbanked markets to foreign investors. Charles Wachira reports.
Egypt’s Commercial International Bank is one of the Middle East and north Africa region's star performers when it comes to returns on assets and capital. James King speaks to the bank's managing director, Hisham Ezz Al-Arab, to discover the secret behind its success.
The BRVM, the shared stock exchange for the eight West African Economic and Monetary Union states, is the world’s only unified and regionally integrated bourse. Though it faces several challenges it is ideally placed to lead the further integration of Africa’s stock exchanges, as James King discovers.
JPMorgan has long been committed to diversity in its workforce and its approach is yielding results. Joy Macknight talks to the women heading the US bank’s Europe, the Middle East and Africa treasury services business lines to gain insight into the drivers of change in the region.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has pushed through business-friendly reforms that would have been unthinkable in Egypt a few years ago, including cutting fuel subsidies. The results have been impressive, bringing praise from the IMF. So is the optimism prevailing in the country justified? James King reports.
Egypt’s banks are throwing their weight behind extending financial inclusion to small and micro businesses, as well as the country's wider population as part of the national Vision 2030 strategy, helped by changes to the bankruptcy system and hopes of lower interest rates. James King reports.
Hala El Said, Egypt’s minister of planning and administrative reform, talks to James King about government strategies to cut unemployment through greater private sector involvement and the decentralisation of investment to the governorates.
Africa's most urgent problem is that of poor nutrition, which is responsible for stunting children's growth – and, ultimately, their future economic prospects. But the continent has the right tools to end malnutrition if its leaders exercise their combined will, writes the president of the African Development Bank.