NIGERIA's central bank told lenders on Monday to stop processing new trade documents for maize imports with immediate effect, a week after it unified its multiple exchange rates in an attempt to ease dollar shortages and conserve its dwindling reserve. In a circular on Monday, the bank said it wanted to support the increase in local maize production, stimulate the economy and safeguard rural livelihoods lost as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It asked lenders to submit existing import documents, called Form M, opened for importation of maize by Wednesday. Form M is a document to be completed by…

LIBBY GEORGE  THE Nigerian government has uncovered previously unknown payments to the daughter of a Nigerian official, its lawyer has told a court, in its latest attempt to overturn an arbitration award against it worth close to $10 billion. Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID), a firm set up to carry out a gas project in Nigeria, won a $6.6 billion arbitration award after the 2010 deal collapsed. The award has been accruing interest since 2013 and is now worth nearly $10 billion. Nigeria is seeking permission in the English courts to appeal the award, granted in 2017, despite having missed…

KALU OJAH, Professor of Finance & Deputy Head of School, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand INDEPENDENCE is a cardinal pillar for organisations that are set up to deliver a public good. Their success depends on it. This is particularly true of development banks such as African Development Bank, AfDB and Inter-American Development Bank. Independence is even more important in these instances because these institutions are owned by – and are meant to cater for – numerous regional member states. In my view their ability to deliver on the objective of assisting member states attain economic growth and sustainable…

ABU Dhabi Fund for Development has suspended debt service repayments for some countries and companies for the year, the state-financed fund has announced. The fund provides financial assistance to companies in the United Arab Emirates and to developing countries, which has included Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. Debt service repayments would be suspended for eligible countries and individual companies in the developing world from Jan. 1 until Dec. 31, the fund said in a statement. Countries and companies would need to request to have repayments suspended, it said. The fund did not say what the criteria would need to be…

IVORY Coast's gross domestic product growth is expected to slow to 0.8% in 2020 compared to a previous forecast of 7.2% if the coronavirus pandemic continues to the end the year, Finance Minister Adama Coulibaly has said. "The initial GDP growth expected at 7.2% in 2020 could tumble to 0.8% if the crisis continues until the end of the year," Coulibaly told a closed-door business meeting on Monday. He said the budget deficit in the world's top cocoa grower was expected to widen due to the crisis, which has made it difficult for the government to respect its target of…

LIBYA's National Oil Corporation (NOC) has said that a forced shutdown in production since January was expected to result in output dropping to 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2022 from about 1.2 million bpd achieved at the start of 2020. The shutdown, which NOC said had led to $6.5 billion in lost production, is the result of a blockade imposed in January by eastern-based forces during a civil war that erupted amid the chaos after Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011. NOC said in a statement on its website that production would be cut in half by 2022 "in…

ZIMBABWE should implement sustainable political and economic reforms and successfully complete an IMF monitoring programme in order to normalise ties with international lenders, the Paris Club of creditor nations said in a letter seen by Reuters. Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube in April wrote to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Paris Club and African Development Bank seeking high-level talks to improve relations with the creditors. He warned that without their help, Zimbabwe faced a catastrophe. But the Paris Club insisted that President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government should first implement "substantive and sustainable political and economic reforms, in particular regarding respect for…

OPEC member Algeria, facing financial pressure after a fall in energy revenue, will launch a new economic plan to reduce reliance on oil and gas and give the private sector a greater role, the government said on Tuesday. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who was elected in December, has repeatedly vowed to reform the oil-reliant economy by developing the non-energy sector and seeking new funding sources. A further drop in oil and gas earnings during the coronavirus pandemic forced the government to cut public spending and delay planned investment projects in sectors including energy. The new "economic and social revival plan" was…

AFRICA is expected to partially rebound next year from a pandemic-induced economic slump, but it could still lose nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in economic output in 2020 and 2021, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has said. Africa has so far largely been spared the rampant infections and heavy death tolls seen in Europe and the United States. Its hardest-hit nation, South Africa, has recorded around 200,000 cases of COVID-19 and just over 3,100 deaths. African economies, however, have not been immune to the pandemic's global shockwaves, with oil exporters such as Algeria, Angola, Libya and Nigeria on…