The International Air Transport Association (IATA) in its November 2019 data for global air freight markets demand has recorded an increase in demand for African carriers by 19.8 percent, compared to the same period a year earlier. Strong trade and investment links with Asia contributed to positive performance. Capacity grew 13.7 percent year-on-year. The demand, measured in freight tonne kilometres (FTKs), ...

The Information and communication technologies (ICT) sector in Africa has continued to grow, a trend that is likely to continue. Of late, mobile technologies and services have generated 1.7 million direct jobs (both formal and informal), contributed to $144 billion of economic value (8.5 percent of the GDP of sub-Saharan Africa), and contributed $15.6 billion to the public sector through ...

A strategy for strengthening relations between Malta and the continent of Africa was launched for public consultation, highlighting the already established connections between Europe’s smallest member state and the second-largest continent in the world. The strategy, which seeks to guide Malta’s path forward between 2020 and 2025, seeks to deepen and strengthen the relationship between Malta and Africa, as a union ...

The new year 2020 marks the beginning of a promising decade for Africa. Through at least the first half of the decade, economic growth across Africa will continue to outperform that of other regions, with the continent continuing to be home to seven of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies. Collective action among African and global policymakers to improve the livelihoods of ...

More than two million West African farmers toil daily to produce precious cocoa beans, but few will ever taste the fine chocolate it eventually produces. The trees that produce these butter-rich pods do not grow outside the steamy tropics, thriving instead on the bulge of Africa. As such, the region produces the bulk of the world’s cocoa. Yet, Belgian, Swiss, Italian and ...

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi is to pay official visits to Africa from Jan. 7 to 13 as his first overseas visit in 2020, which will mark the 30th consecutive year since 1991 that a Chinese foreign minister has visited Africa at the start of every year. Such a well-kept tradition already tells a lot about the ...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will increase the number of divisions in Africa from one to two, in what is seen as a bid to enhance diplomacy in the region. It will be the first time since 2009 that the ministry has had more than one division specializing in Africa-related issues. The ministry now runs the Africa Division under the wing ...

Africa’s labour markets are the most dynamic in the world. Yet, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), African countries had some of the lowest unemployment rates in 2018. They include Niger (0.3%), Rwanda (1%), Burundi (1.5%), Madagascar (1.7%), Togo (1.7%), Ethiopia (1.8%), Tanzania (1.9%), Liberia (2%), Benin (2.1%) and Chad (2.2%). African economies also have some of the world’s highest ...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is recruiting interested U.S. exporters for its first 2020 trade mission, which will take place in Casablanca, Morocco, March 16-19. The mission will focus on boosting U.S. agricultural exports to all of North Africa and will include interested buyers not just from Morocco, but from Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia as well. This will be the ...

African leaders, especially the ones from former British colonies who already have significant trade relations with the UK, doubled down on their efforts to charm Britain into making them primary trade partners after Brexit. African countries have signed countless cooperation agreements with nations across the world, from the EU to the US and Turkey. Africa is the world’s second-fastest-growing region, and yet 100 million ...