As Ghana prepares to pump oil in the second half of 2010, hopes are rising, both among hard-pressed market traders at home and in the far-flung Diaspora, where Ghanaians are quitting jobs in American banks to head back to an optimistic homeland.
Oil was found off Ghana’s coast in 2007 and, even without further discoveries, is now expected to earn an average of $1.2 billion in annual state revenues for almost two decades.
For a country with 23m people and a GDP of $16 billion, it could be a big boost – or a crippling blight.
Perky economic growth, a decent human-rights record, and changes of government by the ballot box in 2000 and 2008 have made Ghana one of the past decade’s success stories in Africa. Read the rest of this entry »
A commodities and currency exchange expected to go live in Mauritius in late March plans to offer Africa’s first currency futures and derivatives market for the Kenyan shilling and Ugandan shilling. This news comes after reports in this past November that 
Bourse Africa, a unit of Financial Technologies, plans to set up an electronic exchange to trade African commodities futures by the second half of next year, Director of Strategy Adam Gross said. 
Mauritius plans to become a financial platform for private equity providers eying investment opportunities in Africa, the Indian Ocean nation’s finance minister said on Monday. Ramakrishna Sithanen said.
