A China Development Bank fund built to coax Chinese firms into Africa has committed roughly US$7.6bn across 39 countries. Its job is less to spend than to make others spend.
Section
Money
Industrial Parks as Gateways: Ethiopia’s FDI Bet, Measured at the Exit
Ethiopia’s parks pulled in record FDI and tens of thousands of jobs. The IFC’s diagnostic is admiring and wary in the same breath: the gateway works, but the road past it is congested.
Green Industrial Chains: A US$700 Million Fund Bets on Africa Keeping the Value
A China-Africa Green Industrial Chain fund of about RMB 5 billion, with seven early projects approved, signals a next-phase pitch: not just power, but the supply chains around it – and the value they
Clean-Energy Contracting: RMB 21 Billion in Revenue, and a Question of Whose
China reports RMB 21.18 billion in contracted clean-energy project revenue since the Beijing Summit. The figure is real – the open question is how much of that contracting value lands in African
Board-level treasury
The World Bank cut its global growth outlook and warned of a sharper drop if conflict spreads. In that volatility, treasury management has moved from back office to boardroom.
Household affordability
Botswana’s budget projects an economic rebound this year. Inflation risk is the variable that decides whether households actually feel it in their discretionary spending.
AI investment finance
AI demand kept global electronics trade moving through a volatile year. The financing question for Botswana is whether it funds the chips or the things they make possible.
Food-price working capital
Food and fertiliser prices keep moving, and every swing forces firms to finance inventory they did not budget for. For Botswana’s food chain, working capital is the quiet cost of volatility.
Cost of capital in construction
Botswana signed energy and mineral exploration deals with Oman just as financing costs climbed worldwide. The ambition is real; the cost of capital decides which projects survive it.