Africa news in briefs

Author of critical book on Egypt's economy arrested

Egyptian police on Sunday arrested the author of a book about Egypt’s economy on charges of publishing false news, security sources and the author’s wife said.

Abdul Khalik Farouk’s detention came days after local media reported that draft copies of his book, “Is Egypt Really a Poor Country?”, which includes criticism of the government’s economic policies, were seized by authorities from a publisher.

A spokesman for Egypt’s interior ministry could not immediately be reached for comment. Two security sources said Farouk was arrested on orders of the public prosecutor. The public prosecutor’s office and the book’s publisher could not immediately be reached for comment late on Sunday.

Farouk’s wife told Reuters that three policemen who took him from their home in a Cairo suburb told her they were detaining him in connection with the book.

-Nampa/Reuters

South Africa's latest finance minister walks budget tightrope

South Africa’s new finance minister will target spending on agriculture, infrastructure and job creation projects in his inaugural budget speech on Wednesday in a bid to haul the economy out of a recession.

With the government facing a ballooning debt, stubbornly high unemployment, struggling state companies, and dwindling coffers, Tito Mboweni, a former central banker only two weeks in the top finance job, will have to walk a tightrope to breath new life into Africa’s most industrialised economy.

Mboweni’s budget speech comes as President Cyril Ramaphosa tries to woo investors after years of weak economic growth and analysts are also watching to see if the budget will include concessions to attract investors.

Agriculture will be a key focus for the government, BNP Paribas South Africa senior economist Jeff Schultz said.

“Agriculture economy in South Africa has shrunk quite significantly over the last decade or so and there is a big push to try and improve that side of the economy because it is employment enhancing,” Schultz said.

-Nampa/Reuters

Ivory Coast rubber output to reach 2 mln T

Ivory Coast’s natural rubber output will reach 2 million tonnes by 2023, the minister of agriculture said on Monday, a more than three-fold rise in production as plantations spread to new parts of the country.

Ivory Coast is Africa’s top natural rubber exporter and the seventh largest producer in the world. New plantations have proliferated as farmers switch from cocoa to rubber in search of more stable incomes.

“This trend will allow us to consolidate our position in Africa and in the world,” agriculture minister Mamadou Sagafowa Coulibaly said during an international rubber conference in the commercial capital Abidjan.

The country’s natural rubber association (APROMAC) increased it 2020 forecast to 750 000 tonnes in January after the previous 600 000 tonne target was met in 2017.

APROMAC President Eugene Kremien said on Monday about 165,000 farmers were planting rubber on around 600 000 hectares of land and that turnover for the sector was 495 billion CFA francs (US$880 million) in 2017.

-Nampa/Reuters

Morocco inflation drops

Morocco’s annual consumer price inflation dropped to 1.1% in September from 1.7% in August as food price rises slowed from last year, the High Planning Commission said on Monday.

Annual food inflation dropped to 0.6% in September, down from 1.1% in August, while non-food inflation increased to 2.1% from 1.9%.

Inflation of goods and miscellaneous services eased to 6.3% in September from 6.5% in the previous month. Communication costs remained flat at 0.3%.

On a month-on-month basis, the consumer price index rose to 0.3% in September from 0.1% in August as food price inflation increased to 0.5% from 0.2%.

-Nampa/Reuters