AI demand raises the stakes for Congo’s coltan supply chain
The expansion of artificial intelligence is creating a new layer of demand risk around one of eastern Congo’s most contested minerals. Coltan is processed into tantalum, which is used in capacitors that manage power in electronics and high-performance computing...
China’s vanishing factory jobs: Africa’s chance, if it can catch them
Economics - Industry & Resources · Editorial By Moakanyi Magazine · China-in-Africa · June 2026 The headline reads like a windfall: as Chinese wages climb, tens of millions of factory jobs must go somewhere, and Africa has the workers. The complication is that...
Diamniadio: Senegal’s bet that a Chinese garment line can build an industry
Economics - Industry & Resources · Editorial By Moakanyi Magazine · China-in-Africa · June 2026 An industrial park is supposed to be the start of an industry, not the end of an announcement. Senegal's Plateforme Industrielle de Diamniadio (PID) tests that...
Huajian in Ethiopia: A Shoemaker as the Test Case for Industrial Linkage
Economics - Industry & Resources · Editorial By Moakanyi Magazine · China-in-Africa · June 2026 If any single firm is meant to prove that China-Ethiopia manufacturing linkage works, it is Huajian. The shoemaker set up two production lines at the Eastern Industrial...
Private Chinese Parks: Ethiopia’s Export Bet, Built Largely by Outsiders
Economics - Industry & Resources · Editorial By Moakanyi Magazine · China-in-Africa · June 2026 Ethiopia set out to industrialise by export, and budgeted accordingly - targeting US$1 billion in annual industrial-park investment to become, in the government's...
Kenya’s railway dream: national ambition meets the arithmetic of a loan
A modern railway was Kenya’s first since independence, a statement of arrival. It also became the country’s biggest debt, where the politics of ambition collides with the politics of repayment.
Zero-Tariff Access: Why Open Gates Do Not Yet Mean Full Shelves
China has dropped tariffs to zero on 100 percent of tariff lines for least-developed African states. The harder work – meeting export protocols – is only beginning.
Beyond Aid: China-Africa Trade Reads as Expansion, With a Balance Question
China-Africa trade hit a record US$295.6 billion in 2024 – a business story, not an aid story. The unresolved question is whether the expansion runs both ways.
Reading the Flow Data: China Is a Quarter of Africa’s Infrastructure Plan
Official flow data shows China financing roughly a quarter of Africa’s priority infrastructure. The harder finding is that money is not the binding constraint – project structuring is.
From Projects to a Market: China’s Africa Pivot Meets AfCFTA’s Bigger Test
China spent two decades building bilateral projects in Africa. AfCFTA asks a harder question – whether they add up to a single continental market or stay a collection of bilateral deals.
PIDA and the Belt and Road: China Funds the Corridors Africa Already Planned
Africa’s own infrastructure blueprint predates Chinese finance. The 2024 FOCAC summit promised 30 projects to advance it – the test is whether they follow the continent’s plan or Beijing’s map.
China and the African Union: A Dialogue Channel That Outpaces Its Receipts
The China-AU strategic dialogue promises co-ordinated development governance. Yet its clearest output to date is a single building, not a shared decision-making system.
From Pledge to Practice: FOCAC’s 2025 Scorecard Shows the Work Behind the Promises
Nine months after Beijing’s summit, a coordinators’ meeting in Hunan put numbers to the follow-through – 35 outcomes across ten sectors.
Beijing 2024: China Reframes Africa Ties as a Shared Modernization Project
A summit that once led with infrastructure now leads with a word: modernization. The pledge is RMB 360 billion – about US$50 billion – and a smaller-is-better posture.
Who Benefits From Lusaka as the Capital of Exile Politics?
Rapid Lusaka redevelopment is erasing unprotected liberation sites. A clear-eyed look at who benefits, who is excluded and the reforms required.
Munya Chimba: Driving Africa’s Logistics and Retail Revolution
Munya Chimba is not just a business leader - he is a force reshaping logistics and retail across Southern Africa. From starting as an accounts clerk to establishing SITT Group, Chimba’s journey is a blueprint in strategic vision, operational excellence, and bold...
Beneath Congo’s mining headline, August 2025: 12 per cent in the pit, 3.5 outside
The IMF puts Congo’s extractive growth at 12.8 per cent and non-mining growth at 3.5 per cent for 2024. The BCC’s August 2025 digest shows household-facing output running behind, so businesses should budget on the lower figure.
Congo’s external account in August 2025: cobalt up 58 per cent, exports still barred
Reserves reached $7,530 million on 22 August 2025 even as cobalt exports stayed barred. Separating price, volume, imports and financing shows why copper, not cobalt, held the external account together.
Spaces, Suppliers, and Stores: Business Exposure Tours Through South Africa’s Capital of Commerce
Spaces, Suppliers, and Stores: Business Exposure Tours Through South Africa's Capital of Commerce For Business Owners, Product Sourcers, Franchise Planners, and Property Scouts across Africa and the diaspora, Johannesburg is not just a destination - it's a strategic...
From Power Broker to Nation Builder: The Evolution of Saviour Kasukuwere
In the political tapestry of post-independence Zimbabwe, few figures have navigated power, policy, controversy, and comeback quite like Saviour "Tyson" Kasukuwere. A former cabinet minister, party commissar, businessman, and farmer, his name evokes both spirited...