Content: Financial Times Articles

Egypt is a country where cash remains king and electronic payments account for a tiny proportion of all transactions. But Ashraf Sabry, founder and chief executive officer of Fawry, the country’s oldest and biggest electronic payments company, has ambitious plans that would see Egypt’s mostly unbanked population of 94m people carry out a broad range […]

For Hitesh Mediratta, the prospect of Kenya holding a repeat presidential election this month stirs mixed emotions. The managing partner of PG Bison, a supplier of materials to the furniture and construction industries, says his industry is suffering as projects are delayed while the east African nation is gripped by political uncertainty. “‘It’s the election, […]

  Miatta Momoh believes in miracles. At least that is how the Londoner describes the unlikely way she wound up on the MBA course at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. Ms Momoh had been made redundant from a UK digital publishing house, where she had been a client services manager, and travelled to Beijing […]

At a boutique in a cosmopolitan area of Accra, Ghana’s capital, fashion designer Aisha Ayensu is cheerful about prospects in the first year of the country’s new government. The climate for young businesses like hers has improved and she feels sure today’s generation will hold politicians to their promises. “We’re actually quite hopeful,” she says. […]

The South African scandal engulfing President Jacob Zuma and the billionaire Gupta family spread deeper into the global professional services sector on Friday when eight senior executives were dismissed from KPMG’s division in the country. The biggest political scandal to face South Africa since the apartheid era has already triggered the collapse of British PR […]

Safaricom, Kenya’s main mobile phone operator, is planning cross-border expansion for the first time, into the untapped market for ecommerce and mobile payments, according to its chief executive Bob Collymore. Mr Collymore said Safaricom would initially target its east African neighbours, but was also considering west Africa. The company’s market capitalisation reached $10.5bn on August […]

Lean, rifle-toting soldiers patrol the spotless streets of Kigali. Rwanda’s capital is locked and loaded on the eve of Paul Kagame’s inauguration, his third seven-year term as president, having secured 98.9 percent of the vote. Kagame divides opinion like no other African leader. Human rights groups and some western governments dismiss him as one more […]

The global financial crisis that began a decade ago has left plenty of economic and political scars. It also has reshaped the way capital flows around the world. In 2007, almost three times as much money crossed borders than it did in 2016, even as investors chase yields and pump up markets in a world […]

With its forbidding chimneys belching smoke into the Mediterranean air, the vast Taranto steelworks on the coastline of southern Italy makes an unprepossessing poster image for the long-awaited consolidation of Europe’s steel sector. As the largest mill in Europe capable of making the metal, it should have benefited from the economies of scale that give […]

As President Paul Kagame of Rwanda entered a sports ground on the banks of Lake Kivu waving to supporters from the back of an open-topped vehicle, the packed crowd erupted. “It’s you we want, it’s you we want,” people yelled. The gathering of tens of thousands was one of Mr Kagame’s final campaign rallies before […]

China’s emergence from near-autarky to being a giant of the world trading system is a marvel unmatched in recent history. Along with that rise has come a surge of hyperbole about the tectonic plates of global power shifting fast, and claiming that China’s authorities will soon replace those of the US as the anchor of […]

Acting on the climate remains firmly on the global agenda. It remained a top priority for all but one of the G20 leaders who gathered in Germany this month. That is because it is increasingly clear that strong action is in the economic self-interest of countries at all stages of development. Climate investment opportunities in […]

Nigeria’s accumulated government debt is just 18.6 per cent of its annual economic output, one of the lowest levels in the world, implying that its debt burden is more than manageable. But is this a fair reflection of reality? Using a different metric, the Nigerian government’s gross debt is 320 per cent of its annual […]

With costs rising in Asia, the East African country wants to be the next low-cost manufacturing hub. But after a wave of violent unrest, its authoritarian government must deal with social and political challenges. Abebech Dansa says she could not be happier. Last year the 25-year-old single mother from Hawassa, 275km south of the Ethiopian […]

Loosely written policies and the relentless growth of digital crime and cyber-disasters mean insurers could already be covering significant volumes of cyber risk without realizing it, according to senior industry figures. The warning, from a top executive at one of Japan’s “big three” non-life insurers, is echoed worldwide by others across the industry and reflects […]

The financial turmoil sometimes knew in Thailand as the tom yum good crisis erupted with the baht’s devaluation 20 years ago on Sunday. The trouble quickly spread across Southeast Asia with the signature intensity of the fiery soup for which it is nicknamed. Markets turned as sour as the shrimp­based dish, as a plunge in […]

Global buyout groups are seeking Kenyan deals as Nigeria fights the recession. Buyout groups investing in Africa are turning east and shunning the oil-­rich western part of the continent as they grapple with the effect of low commodity prices on private equity’s final frontier. In the decade before oil prices plummeted, West Africa ­ particularly […]

Many parents are used to providing handouts to support their adult children, whether towards the purchase of their first car or a deposit for a flat. In the case of Miles Dunkley, his father Graham went a step further and gave him a slice of the high-­end cosmetics and toiletries company that he had founded […]

A revival of global trade this year may be running out of steam before it has got under way, with widely ­followed data indicating a slowdown in the pace of growth as analysts warn of sluggish demand in industrialised and developing countries alike. Figures from CPB World Trade Monitor, a research bureau at the Dutch […]

Ethiopia, the world’s fifth­-largest coffee producer and home of Arabica, has overhauled the way it markets the commodity in an effort to increase export earnings and clamp down on a thriving domestic black market. Experts say the reforms, which centre on improving traceability of beans and stimulating higher quality production, could transform the global speciality […]

Maxwell Zeken is a 16­-year-­old Liberian who lives in rural Nimba County. Asked where he dreams of studying, he says: “I want to study engineering in China and come back to Liberia to build our roads and our cities. They say you must visit the Great Wall of China. I regret that my country didn’t […]

US president Donald Trump risks stoking extremism in Africa and provoking a further exodus of migrants heading for Europe if he goes ahead with plans to cut funding to the continent, according to the head of the African Development Bank. Akinwumi Adesina, president of the AfDB, told the Financial Times that Africa was facing a […]

Africa is back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons when it comes to food security. According to the UN, the world is enduring its worst humanitarian disaster since 1945, with 20m people facing the threat of famine and starvation in Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria, as well as Yemen. While not downplaying the […]

Nairobi­Mombasa is first leg of line in emerging trade bloc but critics fear white elephant A few miles outside the town of Makindu on the Nairobi­Mombasa road sits a heavily guarded compound. Only the sign outside, in red Chinese lettering, indicates that this is the project site for “section 9” of a new $4bn Chinese­built […]