African markets and business updates

Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) Ltd, a leading consumer packaged goods company and member of the Coca-Cola HBC Group, today marked its 75th anniversary in Nigeria with a gala event held at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, Abuja.President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the special guest of honour, was represented by His Excellency, Senator (Dr) George […]

How a proposed reinsurance mechanism, floated at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, extends a pattern already visible in the Hormuz and Black Sea theatres: parallel institutions built to blunt the West’s leverage over who gets to insure a ship. How a proposed reinsurance mechanism, floated at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, extends a pattern already visible in the Hormuz and Black Sea theatres: parallel institutions built to blunt the West’s leverage over who gets to insure a ship. This content is locked Select a CN Premium Subscription Package To Unlock The Content! Remember Me Lost your password? Don't have an account? Register

On September 15, Counsellor Jin Jun attended the 2026 Africa Critical Minerals Conference hosted by Shanghai Metals Market (SMM). Mr. Chilengi, Acting Permanent Secretary of Zambia's Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development, and Mr. Halwampa, Director General of the Zambia Development Agency, attended the conference, along with Mr. Wang Jingjun, President of the Chinese Mining Enterprises Association in Zambia, and about 400 other participants. Counsellor Jin said that China-Zambia mining cooperation is an important component of the practical cooperation between the two countries.…

BGFI Holding Corporation, the parent company of BGFIBank Group, is seeking up to CFA80.558 billion in a second public share offering designed to complete its plan to place 10% of its capital in public hands. The subscription period runs from September 15 to October 15, 2026, with 1,006,975 new shares offered at CFA80,000 each. If fully subscribed, the transaction will increase the total number of shares from 14,728,385 to 15,735,360 and raise the publicly held portion of BGFI Holding’s capital from 3.85% to 10%. The CFA80.558 billion sought, however, will not all increase the company’s share capital.…

Nigeria’s food inflation rate declined to 19.57% in August 2026, marking its first drop in six months and ending five consecutive months of increases.

Cameroon’s Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) has signed investment agreements covering six private-sector projects with planned investments totaling CFAF370.3 billion. Metallurgy accounts for more than 95% of the proposed capital. The projects, which also cover tourism, leisure and manufacturing, are expected to generate 14,267 jobs, according to figures released on September 14 in connection with the agreements. Three metallurgy projects alone represent CFAF353.5 billion and 12,850 projected jobs, or about 90% of the total employment forecast.…

Cameroon’s services sector remained the main driver of economic growth in 2025, supported by strong gains in information and communication and financial services despite slower growth in several other activities, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS). The sector, which covers all service activities, grew 4.3% in 2025 after 4.2% in 2024. “It remains the main driver of national economic growth, with a contribution of 2.2 percentage points to GDP growth,” the INS said in its national accounts report. By comparison, the primary and secondary sectors contributed 0.3 percentage point and 0.6 percentage point, respectively, to GDP growth over the same period.…

Africans are becoming less insistent on democracy and increasingly open to authoritarian forms of government, especially military rule, the latest Afrobarometer Pan-Africa Profile ( ) reports. Over the past decade, Afrobarometer findings have consistently shown popular demand for democracy outstripping its perceived supply, laying bare a persistent gap between how Africans want to be governed and what their political regimes provide. But new data from 38 African countries reveal a shift: The gap between demand for and supply of democracy is narrowing, not because democratic performance has improved significantly, but because popular demand for democracy is weakening.…

Bahrain International Sports City has reached a major procurement milestone, with 20 contractors prequalifying for its first construction phase. The milestone positions the Sakhir development for its next tender stage after Bahrain extended the prequalification deadline. The Ministry of Works opened the process to contractors with major international stadium experience. The project forms part of […]

The Islamic Development Bank Institute (IsDBI) ( ) is delighted to announce the launch of an enhanced version of its pioneering e-Book Reader, designed to give users seamless access to publications in Islamic economics, finance, and sustainable development. Originally launched in 2022 as an app for smart devices, the IsDBI Reader was developed in partnership with Koraspond, a technology firm based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A cloud-based version was subsequently introduced to support reading on larger screens and web-enabled devices.…