THE LOCAL

  A project in Morocco is looking at  how parabolic troughs could help make solar energy cheaper. Young Moroccan enterprise Alto Solution aims to come up with solutions for improving access to both clean water and renewable energy. One such project, Parabolic Trough for Solar Energy involves the design and manufacture of cylindro-parabolic solar concentrators.  These troughs are capable of meeting the needs of industry in place of traditional fossil fuels, explains Mehdi Berrada, the founder of Alto Solution. “Our aim is to promote new types of industrial zone that are powered largely by solar energy.” The basic principle lies in mechanically bending the mirror plates and holding them in position, so as to create a perfect parabola. This technology reduces optical error and increases energy production, while also guaranteeing a very high resistance to wind.  The cost of this technology – around $75 per square metre – is consistent with the objectives of t...

Ethiopia's ambitious plan to build a US$ 4.2 billion dam in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, 40 km from its border with Sudan, is expected to provide 6,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for its population plus some excess it can sell to neighbouring countries. Dubbed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, it will be Africa's biggest dam and will depend on water from the 6,700-km Nile River, the world's longest river. But Ethiopia must first resolve matters with Egypt, which, along with Sudan, claims the rights to the river following a 1929 agreement. That agreement excluded other countries along the Nile River trajectory, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Egypt fears that the dam will suck up water flows to the country and severely affect its domestic consumption. About 86% of the Nile River's water actually originates from Ethiopia, a point the country is underscoring to press its case. In addition, it says that independent experts believ...

Recently, the President of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki urged African financial institutions to focus on assisting African countries to address the disadvantages arising from the underdevelopment of the continent’s economy.  The president made this known in Asmara when he received a delegation of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) led by Dr Benedict Oramah. President Afwerki said that despite the fact that Africa is endowed with 60 percent of the world’s resources, the continent continues to be disadvantaged because of the underdeveloped economy, which saw it exporting mainly raw materials and primary products. “Eritrea believes in working with financial institutions that can help in transforming the African economy,” said Afwerki. President Afwerki expressed Eritrea’s willingness to join Afreximbank as a Member State. He said that Eritrea would aim to be an effective contributor to encourage and ensure the creation of the environment for the delivery of the services ...

It is called "financial inclusion", and it is a key government policy in Rwanda. The goal is that, by 2020, 90 percent of the population is to have and actively use bank accounts. And in only four years, financial inclusion has doubled in Rwanda. The Rwandan government has set a target of 90 percent financial inclusion by 2020 and the evidence of progress toward this goal is everywhere, according to World Bank research analyst Douglas Randall, who is "impressed by the financial inclusion landscape in this country." Advertisements for mobile-money products are painted and plastered onto almost every available surface in Rwanda. And, if you know what to look for, it does not take long to spot an Umurenge Savings and Credit Cooperative (Umurenge SACCO) - Rwanda's signature financial inclusion initiative. Six years ago, the 2008 Fin Scope survey found that that 47 percent of Rwandan adults used some type of financi...

Every profession needs thought leaders to challenge the status quo and set the bar to enable the rest of us to be better versions of our professional selves. To help put this into perspective let’s look at my profession, the world of corporate finance.  Over the last decade, finance has experienced incremental improvements in technology, leading to innovative advances in financial processes. Finance leaders that are ahead of the pack are starting to see the exponential benefits of not thinking incrementally.  A recent  study by  the SAP Center for Business Insight, conducted in collaboration with Oxford Economics, indicates that when it comes to digital transformation, companies that fail to get beyond an incremental mindset – and view technology merely as a tool, rather than an integrated part of their business – risk their very survival. The survey found that a large majority of companies understand the importance of digital transformation, but just three...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has always had strong ties with Africa. Given that about 65% of all Arabs are also Africans, it is no surprise that there is a close relationship between the two. Yet these bonds were overwhelmingly with North Africa until relatively recently. The economic potential of the continent as a whole has now persuaded many Emirati firms to look south of the Sahara, while the UAE government is doing everything it can to support this investment. The Dubai Chamber of Commerce puts total non-oil trade between Africa and the UAE for 2016 at $24bn, up from $17.5bn in 2014 and $5.6bn in 2005, on the back of investment in agriculture and banking but above all infrastructure: in ports, aviation and telecoms. The UAE is Africa’s biggest trade partner in the Gulf. Egypt still attracts most Emirati investment and ties between the UAE and North Africa in general are particularly close because of a shared language, religion and culture. Agriculture ...

It’s the perfect match for modern day living: self-service cars, by the hour or day, accessible 24/7 and with parking, fuel and insurance costs included. This, a first for Morocco, is on offer in Casablanca from the startup Carmine. Now that self-service bikes have rolled into the country, cars are following suit and offer a much-wanted service in the economic capital, burdened with increasing, chaotic traffic. The firm was created in 2014, and tested the waters with a pilot project in July 2015. According to CEO and founder Mohamed Mrani Alaoui, this was, “A period during which we really reached maturity.” There was a lot to do: running trials on rates, defining parking spaces through a partnership with the city, personalising technology and getting to know client needs. “People thought the concept wouldn’t work in Morocco, to judge by the time it took us to go into commercial operation,” says Alaoui. “But that pilot period was about making the new service more...

When investing in foreign markets, it is important to consider currency risk, a topic we have covered many times before. We ensure that our Frontier Market Dashboard prominently displays both local currency and USD adjusted returns to underscore the difference that currency can make. However, how to calculate the USD-adjusted returns is not as simple as adding the stock and currency returns together. Calculating Currency’s Impact On Returns This is the formula: USD Currency Adjusted Return (%) = (1 + Return in Local Currency) x (1 + Return on Local Currency vs USD) – 1 Currency has a  multiplicative , rather than  additive , effect on returns. This is because it affects not only the initial amount invested, but also the subsequent profit/loss that is in local currency. This means that if a currency has appreciated during the holding time, the currency adjusted profit/loss will be larger than if you added the two returns together, and smaller if the currenc...

Britain’s economy is showing signs of coming through the worst of its 2017 slowdown, according to a Guardian analysis, as exporters benefit from an improving global economy and inflation remained steady. In the week after Chancellor Philip Hammond’s budget outlined the biggest growth downgrade for the UK since the Conservatives came to power in 2010,  How has the Brexit vote affected the UK economy? November verdict   Read more The country has kept on an even keel as exporters were bolstered by growth in global trade, while the improvement in the outlook for the rest of the world is helping to offset weakness at home. Households continue to feel the squeeze from inflation, prompted by the weak pound since the Brexit vote, but the rate at which prices rose in the UK stayed at 3% despite expectations of a further increase.  Still, questions remain over the UK’s future trading relationship with Europe, while Hammond’s budget re...

Prices at the pump dipped again in the last week, but a much-anticipated meeting of oil-producing countries Thursday could push prices higher heading into the New Year and beyond. Drivers in all 50 states saw the price of a gallon of unleaded drop last week, with the national average down about 3 cents to $2.50 by late Tuesday morning. Prices will to continue to fall for the next few weeks, experts say, as demand eases following the Thanksgiving travel period. ·          America's oil and gas output could soar 25% by 2025 ·          Gas prices rise another 3 cents on the week ·          BP CEO: Oil prices won't spike much higher ·          Political turmoil, late-season demand drives jump in gas prices ·          Gas prices tick down again, but storm impacts linger · ...

One bitcoin is now worth more than $11,000 (£8,180) after the digital currency’s value soared more than tenfold this year. In the last three days, alone bitcoin has gained more than a quarter in value. That’s far more than most investments return in a year, causing many to ask how they can get in on the action and others to suggest it’s a dangerous  bubble waiting to burst . So what exactly is  bitcoin  and why is it attracting so much attention? What is bitcoin? Bitcoin is a digital currency created in 2009 by a mysterious figure using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. It can be used to buy or sell items from people and companies that accept bitcoin as payment, but it differs in several key ways from traditional currencies. Most obviously, bitcoin doesn’t exist as a physical currency. There are no actual coins or notes. It exists only online.  “Real-world” currencies, like the dollar, are managed by a central bank such as the US Federal Reserve or the Ba...