Features

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – A senior White House adviser expressed confidence that a key Democratic senator who raised objections to President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion tax and spending package can eventually be persuaded to give his backing.  Senator Joe Manchin, who last week demanded a “strategic pause” in Biden’s economic agenda, should be “very persuadable” by the argument that the package as envisaged “adds nothing to the debt,” White House chief of staff Ron…

L;AGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The United Arab Emirates plans to deepen its trade ties in fast-growing economies in Asia and Africa, and draw $150 billion in foreign investment from mainly older partners to reposition itself as a global hub for business and finance. The UAE — which has been the Middle East’s commercial capital for more than a decade and has been facing growing regional competition from Saudi Arabia — will work on…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Methane is the second-largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. But new and better techniques to spot major emitters of the odorless, colorless gas have pushed curbing it up climate to-do lists. Scientists view reducing methane emissions from the fossil fuel industry as the cheapest and easiest way to hold down global temperatures in the near term. That could counterbalance the initial warming effect from declining use of…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – President Joe Biden’s big plans for the U.S. economy are on the verge of passing their first major legislative tests in the Senate, leaving their future to intra-party struggles between Democratic progressives and moderates. A broad group of Democratic and Republican senators is prepared to place a bipartisan stamp of approval on a cornerstone of the Biden agenda — a $550 billion infrastructure program — in a vote…

MOGADISHU (Capital Markets in Africa) – Somalia has set up a national payments system as part of plans to develop the financial industry in one of the world’s most fragile states, following decades of political and economic instability. The 13 lenders in the Horn of Africa nation can now “become inter-operable, connected to the clearing and settlement system of the central bank and able to transact with each other,” Central Bank of Somalia Governor Abdirahman…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Young investment bankers on big salaries who complain about being overworked have come under fire from one of the City of London’s veteran financiers. Xavier Rolet, the former boss of the London Stock Exchange who was previously a leading banker, has told graduates who do not enjoy their jobs “by any means do something else”. He suggested that financial firms troubled by mutinous staff “should try hiring poor, hungry…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – The U.S. Senate is heading toward passage this week of a $550 billion infrastructure bill that would provide the biggest infusion of federal spending on public works in decades and mark a major milestone for President Joe Biden’s economic agenda. The Democratic and Republican senators who negotiated the plan spent the weekend haggling over last-minute details and combing through the 2,702-page bill text before submitting it to the…