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The new government of President Alpha Condé has received a good report from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission that visited on 10-22 November. Mission head Harry Snoek said Guinea had made good progress under its 2011 staff-monitored programme, which involves close supervision but no funding,

The cabinet has appointed Manuel Vicente to a new three-year term as head of Sonangol, apparently putting an end to speculation that he could be about to succeed President José Eduardo dos Santos.

The escalation of the euro crisis has added to concerns about Francophone African risk, although risk perceptions and pricing remain stable for now. There has already been an impact on trade finance availability and, as the Eurozone crisis unfolds, it may become harder still to source bilateral and commercial finance, writes Kevin Godier

The European Commission has proposed new disclosure requirements along the lines of the US Dodd-Frank Act for companies based in the European Union

The European Commission has proposed new disclosure requirements along the lines of the US Dodd-Frank Act for companies based in the European Union. The new rules would require large extractive and logging companies to report payments they make to governments

Zambia’s new government plans to capitalise on its B+ credit rating by issuing a $500m ten-year sovereign bond next year. Presenting the 2012 budget to parliament, finance minister Alexander Chikwanda said the rating from Standard & Poor’s and Fitch “has opened up the opportunity for Zambia

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi used The Economist’s 20 October Nigeria Summit in Abuja to stress that the naira would not be devalued – in a move to reassure investors worried about continued instability. Sanusi argued that to devalue the currency, which is pegged to the dollar,

Economic pressures created by the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings have squeezed payments by the Ministry of Petroleum. President Hosni Mubarak’s fall and the establishment of interim authority under the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) has not had a major long-term impact on production, which has returned to pre-crisis levels. However, tight government finances

President Michael Sata has made a number of promises but looks unlikely to unsettle major investors with big policy changes, though he has bravely pledged to tackle the fuel supply conundrum, writes Chiwoyu Sinyangwe in Lusaka

An eventual move towards cost-reflective tariffs is not ruled out, but “a rise in the price of electricity is out of the question during the next five years”, Sonelgaz Holding president director-general Noureddine Bouterfa said on 10 October, as he announced the state utility’s 2010 results.

Normally good relations with the International Monetary Fund have been restored after a brief hiatus. The IMF had announced in February, in language dry even by its standards, that Uganda “did not complete the first review under the three-year Policy Support Instrument (PSI)”.

The governments of Mozambique and South Korea have signed an agreement for a $35m soft loan to finance the construction of three solar power stations in the Muembe, Mecula and Mavago districts in the northern province of Niassa.

Hundreds of businesses, including many oil service providers, engineering and construction companies, are preparing to make billions of dollars-worth of claims against the new Libyan government for losses and damage sustained during the six-month revolution.

Fuel distributor Petro Ivoire is seeking to raise €5m ($7m) with a bond issue on the NYSE Euronext market. The company listed a token 0.02% of its capital in Paris on 30 September, enabling it to issue the eight-year bond to fund an expansion of its business.

The international board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) has designated Mali as EITI compliant, bringing the total number of EITI compliant countries to 12, including five others in Africa.