Africa's economy is likely to grow 3.7 percent this year as resilient private consumption and investment offsets the effect of a slump in commodity prices and global headwinds, the African Development Bank (AfDB) said on Monday. Launching its latest regional economic outlook in the Zambian capital, the AfDB also said growth could accelerate to 4.5 percent next year if commodity prices recovered and the global economy strengthened. Source: CNBC Africa

Worldwide the future of manufacturing is uncertain. Thanks to emerging technologies such as mobile connectivity, artificial intelligence, next-generation robotics, and 3D printing, supply chains and factory floors face transformations as significant as any since the last industrial revolution. This “Fourth Industrial Revolution” will feature new forms of collaboration that drive innovative value chains and business models that could leave traditional industrial patterns in the dust. Influenced by these global manufacturing trends, Africa has its own challenges. In order to develop its economic infrastructure and to improve its balance of payments, local beneficiation of the continent’s natural resources and agricultural products is essential.  The United Nations expects that Africa’s population will double to 2.5 billion people by 2050. The middle class is rising, indicating an increase in consumption. Moreover, the population growth indicates a dramatic need for employment. Africa has no alternative to developing a strong value-added manufacturing base. The continent, however, has a way to go: in 2014, 30 per cent of China’s GDP came from manufacturing, according to the World Bank. By comparison, Nigeria’s share stood at just 9 per cent, Kenya 12 per cent, Zambia 8 per cent. Africa has ample opportunities to grow its manufacturing base in a broad range of industries. Local beneficiation of resources in for example oil and gas is one example. Moreover, the growth of the population will spur growth in direct consumer industries such as food/agriculture and beverage, home and personal care, apparel, and even automotive. Other likely target sectors include secondary industries...

The East African region’s competitiveness can only be boosted if more investments are made in infrastructure, healthcare and education, a competitiveness report has shown. The 2015/2016 Africa Competitiveness Report shows that East Africa is the continent’s most competitive region with Rwanda being the most competitive economy in the region followed by Kenya. Overall, Rwanda is in third position in Africa after Mauritius and South Africa and 58th globally. The report findings indicate that East Africa’s favourable ranking largely owes to the diversity of its economies and business efficiency. However, the report findings indicate that a lot is desired in basic aspects such as infrastructure within and connecting the region outwards as well as healthcare and education. Improvements in education and healthcare will serve to improve human capital and market size, the report notes. “Although currently Africa’s fastest growing region, the EAC faces competitiveness challenges including infrastructure, human capital, technological readiness and market size. Life expectancy remains low and infant mortality high. Despite recent progress, secondary and tertiary enrolment rates remain low at 38 per cent and 4.5 per cent respectively which is lower than Ecowas and SADC,” the report reads in part. The report also takes into consideration the disparities within EAC member states, which cause some countries to bring down the overall performance of the region. “The greatest disparities in the EAC region are in the areas of institutions and financial markets development. Rwanda leads in institutions, infrastructure, health and primary education and market efficiencies. Kenya leads in business...

DAR ES SALAAM Tanzania (Xinhua) -- The Tanzania Dairy Board (TDB) is holding talks with its counterparts in other East African Community (EAC) member states aimed at convincing them to scrap tariff barriers on exports of milk from Tanzania, officials said on Thursday. TDB acting registrar Nelson Kilongozi, said removal of the tariff barriers would expand Tanzania’s dairy products market in the other EAC members of Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. Speaking at a seminar for building capacity to small holder dairy farmers in the east African nation’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam, Kilongozi admitted that Tanzania’s dairy sector has been grappling with limited market since it could not sell beyond the country’s borders. “In fact we feel that these tariff barriers are unnecessary, we want our colleagues in the EAC member states to remove them,” he said. Currently, Tanzania produces 2.4 billion litres of milk annually out of which 30 per cent is produced by dairy cows and the remaining 70 per cent comes from traditional free range cattle. Philip Emmanuel, a senior official with the Department of Agriculture, Irrigation and Cooperatives encouraged dairy farmers to form cooperatives to improve their economic status. . Tanzania sets 94 per cent of energy budget for development projects DAR ES SALAAM (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian authorities said on Thursday they were planning to spend 94 percent of the energy and minerals’ budget for implementation of development projects in the coming financial year that starts on July 1. Sospeter Muhongo, the Minister...

Tanga. The Tanga Port is expected to new equipment to increase in the volume of cargo handling. The equipment will be acquired before the end of next month, according to port master Henry Alika. Tanga City has leapt to prominence with the recent announcement of the $4 billion (about Sh8.8 trillion on the prevailing exchange rate) Uganda-Tanzania oil pipeline project and the proposed Rwanda-Tanzania railway. The two projects have generated a lot of interest in the business community. The equipment to be acquired include one patrol boat, a one 90-tonne Terrain mobile crane, four navigational buoys and one towing tug. It will also acquire two wheel loaders, two 35-tonne mobile cranes and one pilot boat. Mr Alika said the port handled 805,056 tonnes of cargo in the 2014/2015 financial year. “The port expects to handle 1,096,000 tonnes of cargo, which would be an increase of 290,944 tonnes compared with last financial year’s. This is 156 per cent of its handling capacity of 700,000 tonnes per year,” he said. However, he said the closure of factories in Tanga and a decline in export of sisal have had a negative impact on the port’s performance. The local economy was based mainly on the production of sisal. The crop was introduced in the late 19th century by Germans. Tanga residents are, however, optimistic that the reopening of the railway line could increase cargo transport, leading to an improvement of the port’s performance. They hope the situation will stimulate economic activities and subsequently increase...

The 2016/2017 annual budget of the cash-strapped EAC will be tabled here on Thursday before the regional Assembly which starts its budget session here today. Mr Mfumukeko warned when the baton was handed over to him by Dr Richard Sezibera, a Rwanda national, of impending stringent measures to salvage the regional organization from the current financial crisis. He stated that EAC, now made of six member states after the recent admission of South Sudan, has never experienced such financial instability and that he as a chief executive of the regional body would propose stern measures geared at cost-cutting and accountability on the part of its officials. During the current 2015/2016 financial year which is coming to an end, the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) approved a budget of $ 110,660,098 but by last month the Arusha-based Secretariat complained that the development partners, who contribute 70 per cent of the budget, had not disbursed about 30 per cent fo the expected funds. During the fiscal year coming to an end, EAC was compelled to phase out some projects funded by development partners due to declining support from donors. The $ 110.6m that was approved for expenditure was $14 million less than the 2014/2015 financial year budget which totalled $124 million. The next financial year budget will be read by Tanzania’s minister for Foreign Affairs, International and EAC Affairs Dr. Augustine Mahiga, in his capacity as the Chairperson of the EAC Council of Ministers, the policy organ of the Community. The unprecedented...

Uganda has played down any suggestions that the Kenyan government plans to construct its route of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) that will be terminated at Kisumu, which is about 139 kilometres from the Kenya-Uganda border town of Malaba. According to The East African newspaper, Kenya’s transport cabinet secretary James Macharia acknowledged that extension of the line to Malaba may no longer be necessary if landlocked states opted out. “The decision has not been reached but we have a number of options at our disposal. We can decide to end the SGR at Naivasha or Kisumu but it will still be a viable venture due to the presence of Lake Victoria,” said Mr Macharia. The SGR Uganda project coordinator, Mr Kasingye Kyamugambi has refuted the claims and said the three countries – Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda – were still committed to the route. “I think the protocol is clear between the countries and anything that’s outside the protocol must also come through the Northern Corridor Integration Project (NCIP) summit that we use as a fall back arm to know if we are together or not and that is really the presidents’ forum,” he told Daily Monitor during a tour to assess land acquisition in Tororo District on Wednesday. The ping-pong Rwanda last week, announced plans to build a railway through Tanzania to the Indian Ocean noting that the route is cheaper and would take a shorter time to complete. This is according to The East African. The Northern Corridor Infrastructure...

Kampala. The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) is set to unveil strategies of creating 25 million jobs for young people over the 10 years in its member states. The strategies are contained in the group’s new agenda for the continent’s economic transformation that are to be revealed at this year’s annual meetings scheduled to take place from May 23 to 27 in Lusaka, Zambia. Unemployment in sub Saharan/African continent as a whole has an estimated 11 million young Africans expected to join the labour market every year for the next decade (World Bank data). Therefore, creating millions of productive, well-paying jobs will be vital to boost economic growth to significantly cut poverty, and create shared prosperity in Africa. In an annual meetings preview video message, the president AfDB, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said participants will examine burning issues in Africa and focus on the bank’s five new priority areas, (High 5s), designed to scale up its operations for the continent’s transformation. These High 5s are: Light up and power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialise Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. “Each of those is high on the agenda in Lusaka,” Dr Adesina said, noting that three of them will take a major leap forward as the bank unveils new strategies, and a programme to create 25 million jobs for young people over the next decade. “All of them need to be debated and owned, as much by governments, as by business, as by civil...

There was much excitement in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in the week leading up to the convening of the World Economic Forum for Africa recently. As with past meetings of this magnitude, the government of Rwanda left nothing to chance. Its remarkable mobilisation capacity was deployed to get everyone with a role to play during the preparations to do their bit and do it well. Under normal circumstances officials and public servants here work like there is no tomorrow. It gets worse when big events that require special attention are in the offing. Contacts I was running after for bits of information about this and that and who from one to the next pleaded inability to see me, summed up what was going on. The most common response to appointment requests were, “I really can’t do anything this week.” A friend working for a major government agency wasn’t exaggerating when he said it was no use trying to set up a coffee appointment before the WEF was over, “because I am not able to think about anything else right now”. It mattered not whether I was talking to a public servant, a politician, or a member of the local business community. They were all “busy with WEF.” What on earth were they doing, I wondered. In public, there was not much activity in evidence. And there were no reports in the media about this or that critically important aspect of the preparations lagging hopelessly behind schedule. Everything seemed to be in...

Come July, exporters in East Africa will pay more, when a new requirement on weighing and verifying containers is implemented globally. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is making verification of weights a condition for loading packed export containers aboard ships to conform to amended changes to Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention. Safety is a driver of change as each year over 135 million containers enter the global supply chain, but many lack accurate weight estimates, contributing to costly shipping accidents. The Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) said SOLAS changes aim to curb under-declaring weight of cargo that can lead to shipwrecks, destruction of goods and pollution if hazardous cargo spills into the sea. The global rule for shippers to provide verified gross mass (VGM) for every packed container complete with correct documentation targeting enhanced safety is expected to increase cost of operations with consumers bearing the brunt. A container without VGM will not be loaded on a ship from July 1. A shipper sending goods will be responsible for proper verified weighing of packed container and documentation for cargo to be loaded on a vessel. Any container exceeding maximum gross mass will not be loaded to a ship. KMA acting director-general Cosmas Cherop said a container leaving a port will have a document signed either electronically or in hard copy by the shipper on bill of lading. Shippers will make the information available in advance to the port and the shipping line. The first method of obtaining VGM entails...