Business leaders, financiers and policymakers will today convene in Kigali to discuss ways to accelerate access to finance for investments in housing, agribusiness and tourism in East African Community (EAC) countries at the 2018 Development Finance Forum. The summit, organised by World Bank Group seeks to mull ways to accelerate private investments in three sectors that have proven to drive growth and job creation. The summit’s organisers say the focus on affordable housing is aimed at addressing the shortage of affordable housing in the region and at the same time creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. “Eliminating the housing shortage would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, many of them suitable for young workers, boost economic growth, and improve the lives of millions. This event will bring together thought leaders and executives from both public and private sectors to look at regulatory, supply, construction, and financing issues across the housing value chain,” the organisers noted. For instance, in the case of Kigali, a 2012 study by the City of Kigali, the Ministry of Infrastructure, and the European Union showed that Kigali could face a housing deficit of 344,000 homes in 2020. Presently, between 800 and 1,000 housing units are constructed annually, the majority targeting high-income earners, leaving the majority of city dwellers without decent housing options. To address the housing shortage, the city needs to build at least 31,000 housing units annually, according to the study to ensure city dwellers get quality shelter. Low and middle-income earners were found to...

Arusha. The East African Community (EAC) will embark on another bid to woo investors during the forthcoming regional business conference following a sharp drop in foreign direct investments (FDIs) to the bloc in the last two years. Statistics released here last week indicate that FDI inflows to the six-nation bloc went down to $6.6 billion last year from $8.8 billion in 2016, a 25.3 per cent drop. The situation is equally not rosy for intra-EAC investments during the same period. They plunged by 22.3 per cent from $254.1 million in 2016 to $197 million last year. Existing business opportunities in the region aimed to counter the declining trend will be key during the third East African Business and Entrepreneurship Conference and Exhibition slated for Kampala, Uganda end of next month. “The conference will showcase investment opportunities in the region,” said Lilian Awinja, the chief executive officer of the East African Business Council (EABC), which is organising the event. Statistics issued by EABC and seen by The Citizen showed another worrying scenario – decline of combined exports from the region to the outside world by 9 per cent from $16.2 billion in 2016 to $14.3 billion last year. No reasons were given by the Arusha-based business body on the reasons for the sharp fall of investments from abroad to the bloc. Efforts to reach officials at the EAC Secretariat to comment on the same were not successful although one of them downplayed the statistics, saying the region was still attractive to...

China will this week host a forum where development projects for the next three years will be discussed. African leaders are going to Beijing for the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) Summit, hoping to get financing for their mega infrastructure projects. The summit themed "China and Africa: Towards an Even Stronger Community with a Shared Future through Win-Win Cooperation," is meant to link the Belt and Road Initiative with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the AU’s Agenda 2063 and individual countries' development plans. But it comes at a time when some African countries are grappling with an external debt burden and a trade balance favouring Beijing. Credit rating firms and global financial institutions have been advising against taking out further loans, instead recommending fiscal consolidation to arrest the ballooning debt. Kenya, for instance, had taken over $5 billion from China as at the end of March 2018 while Uganda owed China $1.6 billion. Kenya’s National Treasury has recently been under pressure to slow down the growth of public debt, with the International Monetary Fund raising its concerns. Related Content If Beijing sneezes, East Africa will catch a bad cold Comesa defends deals with China Why Asian giants have eyes on resource rich EA China can deliver African continent’s growth miracle Even then, East African Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda — who is also the African Union chairman — Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya are expected to attend the summit and seek financing for their...

BEIJING/CAIRO -- China is seeking to further expand trade with Africa as a way to reduce risk from the U.S. trade dispute, a strategy made clear at a two-day summit ended Tuesday in Beijing. "Expanding imports from Africa helps spread the risk presented by the U.S.-China trade war," an employee of a Chinese state-owned oil major told Nikkei. At the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the two sides adopted a joint statement and a three-year action plan, laying out plans to deepen cooperation in various fields. The leaders from both sides have "reached significant common ground and spoken with one voice on all major issues," Chinese President Xi Jinping told reporters at the closing of the event. Priority areas of cooperation include boosting trade, nurturing African industry and strengthening security. During Tuesday's session, Xi also stressed the importance of opposing protectionism and supporting free trade, an implicit reference to the go-it-alone attitude of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Xi called on African leaders to work together for both sides to develop and prosper together. For China, Africa's biggest trading partner, the value of trade with the continent for the January-July period grew 20% year-on-year, with imports jumping 30% to $56.8 billion and exports to Africa climbing 10% to $59.3 billion. China imported more crude oil from Angola and other countries in an apparent effort to compensate for declining imports of natural gas from the U.S. amid the two powers' mutual hiking of tariffs, as well as Washington's move to impose sanctions on Iranian crude oil. In 2017, about 40% of China's crude oil imports came from...

President Paul Kagame has backed the Africa-China development framework announced on Monday by Chinese President Xi Jinping. President Kagame was speaking on Tuesday at a roundtable discussion organised as part of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Kagame said that the summit’s declaration on closer cooperation and the Beijing Action Plan capture the key issues and provide an ideal roadmap for the way forward. “Both the Summit Declaration and the Beijing Action Plan capture the key issues and provide a roadmap for next steps. Rwanda supports the adoption of these texts and strongly endorses the vision of a community with a shared future,” the President said. He said that aspects of the development framework will bring the two partners closer and lead to the achievement of common and individual goals. “Of particular importance is that the Beijing Action Plan is intended to boost Africa and China’s existing development frameworks. The Forum’s expanded cooperation areas will surely bring us closer to our goals,” Kagame, who is also the Chair of the African Union, said. Under the framework, China will extend $60b of financing to Africa in the form of government assistance as well as investment and financing by financial institutions and companies. The financing includes $15b of grants, interest free loans and concessional loans, $20b in credit lines and $10b earmarked as development financing. A further $5b will serve as a special fund for financing imports from Africa. The development framework, among other things, will encourage...

Around the same time last week, Germany’s Angela Merkel and the UK’s Theresa May visited countries in Africa. But the timing of the visits from leaders of two of Europe’s leading economies was conspicuous as, starting today (Sept. 3), nearly all African leaders will attend the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation summit in Beijing where China is expected to, once again, dole out large loan packages. For their part, Merkel and May had their own goals too. While they came bearing gifts, in the long run, they will be hoping for reciprocal benefits. Merkel’s talks at each of her three stops in Senegal, Ghana, and Nigeria focused on stemming the flow of migrants heading to Europe in search of a better life. The German chancellor, with nearly a dozenGerman CEOs in tow, pressed for increased investment to create jobs which will offer locals viable livelihoods and disincentivize migration. And she had some success: German car giant Volkswagen announced plans to expand operations in both Ghana and Nigeria promising more investment and jobs in two of West Africa’s largest economies. But there’s a political upside for Merkel too. Having come under pressure for her handling of the growing migrant influx in Germany, reversing the trend will be crucial for her party during the next federal elections. British prime minister Theresa May was more unabashed about the purpose of her first ever Africa tour with stops in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. As Brexit looms, May is looking to “deepen and strengthen” the UK’s “global partnerships,” even if it requires busting out awkward dance moves. May signed trade deals,...

African countries have shown a healthy appetite for Chinese loans but some experts now worry that the continent is gorging on debt, and could soon choke. The Entebbe-Kampala Expressway is still something of a tourist attraction for Ugandans, nearly three months after it opened. The 51km (31 mile), four-lane highway that connects the country's capital to the Entebbe International Airport was built by a Chinese company using a $476m (£366m) loan from the China Exim Bank. It has cut what was a torturous two-hour journey through some of Africa's worst traffic into a scenic 45-minute drive into the East Africa nation's capital. Uganda has taken $3bn of Chinese loans as part of a wider trend that Kampala-based economist Ramathan Ggoobi calls its "unrivalled willingness to avail unconditional capital to Africa". "This debt acquired from China comes with huge business for Chinese companies, particularly construction companies that have turned the whole of Africa into a construction site for rails, roads, electricity dams, stadia, commercial buildings and so on," the Makerere University Business School lecturer told the BBC. The Chinese loans come as many African countries are once again in danger of defaulting on their debts more than a decade after many had their outstanding borrowing written off. At least 40% of low-income countries in the region are either in debt distress or at high risk, the International Monetary Fund warned in April. Chad, Eritrea, Mozambique, Congo Republic, South Sudan and Zimbabwe were considered to be in debt distress at the end...

Chinese President Xi Jinping offered another $60 billion in financing for Africa on Monday and wrote off some debt for poorer African nations, while warning against funds going towards “vanity projects”. Speaking at the opening of a major summit with African leaders, Xi promised development that people on the continent could see and touch, but that would also be green and sustainable. China has denied engaging in “debt trap” diplomacy, and Xi’s offer of more money comes after a pledge of another $60 billion at the previous summit in South Africa three years ago. Xi, addressing leaders at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, said the new $60 billion will include $15 billion of aid, interest-free loans and concessional loans, a credit line of $20 billion, a $10 billion special fund for China-Africa development, and a $5 billion special fund for imports from Africa. Chinese companies will be encouraged to invest no less than $10 billion in the continent in the next three years, he said. Government debt from China’s interest free loans due by the end of 2018 will be written off for indebted poor African countries, as well as for developing nations in the continent’s interior and small island nations, Xi said. “China-Africa cooperation must give Chinese and African people tangible benefits and successes that can be seen, that can be felt,” he said. China will carry out 50 projects on green development and environmental protection in Africa, focusing on fighting climate change, desertification and wildlife protection, Xi...

China-Africa partnership catalyses sustainable development, a senior United Nations official said. The win-win cooperations, between African countries and China “will put Africa on a sustainable development pathway,” Ahunna Eziakonwa, assistant administrator and director of the Regional Bureau for Africa at the United Nations Development Program, told Xinhua in an interview. Eziakonwa will join the delegation led by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to attend the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) on Sept. 3-4. During the interview, she named the railway connecting landlocked Ethiopia with Djibouti, the Mombasa-Nairobi railway in Kenya, the hydropower plants in Uganda and some other major Chinese-assisted infrastructure projects in Africa, saying China-Africa cooperation has entered the fast lane. China and Africa have a long history of cooperation, which has greatly intensified in the past decade, especially in the last five years, she said. It is exciting to see Africa making incredible developments with China, she added.  Africa has received help from many countries, yet its relationship with China has unleashed explosive growth in the region, she said. China’s development experience is relevant to Africa, she said, adding that Chinese investments in Africa, especially those in infrastructure, have ignited hope for the region. “Having been at a similar development point in history gives a lot of developing and emerging economies hope for transformation, accelerated human development and innovation,” Eziakonwa said. The 2015 FOCAC held in South Africa witnessed an agreement between China and Africa to carry out 10 major cooperation plans. These plans will help the...

President Paul Kagame has described the existing relationship between China and Africa as one based on equality, mutual respect and “a commitment to a shared wellbeing.” The Head of State was addressing leaders from across Africa and China at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit that is underway in the Chinese capital, Beijing. The forum, seventh of its kind, is a platform where all African countries and China meet periodically to see how to collectively strengthen ties with an aim of building a shared future. “The relationship between Africa and China is based on equality, mutual respect, and a commitment to shared well-being. This was our starting point eighteen years ago, when the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was established,” said President Kagame, who is also the Chairperson of the African Union. According to the President, ever since the first forum, China’s actions have demonstrated that a stronger Africa is seen as an opportunity to invest in, rather than as a problem or a threat. “China has continued to lead the way in showing what is lost in not engaging and partnering with Africa,” he said. The President said that the Forum has grown into a powerful engine of cooperation, fully aligned with Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals. Since its establishment 18 years ago, FOCAC has achieved a significant mark of China-Africa cooperation, with trade volume between China and Africa amounting to 170 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. This represents a major increase from the just over...