Author: Emmanuel Mbemba

Brazzaville stages Francophone business diplomacy The 2025 Rencontre des Entrepreneurs Francophones, convened under the patronage of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, gathered more than three thousand executives and policy-makers in Brazzaville. The forum’s purpose—nurturing South-South commercial partnerships within a French-speaking space exceeding 320 million consumers—accorded Congo-Brazzaville an opportunity to position itself as a logistical gateway between the Gulf of Guinea and the continental hinterland. In that setting, Africa Global Logistics, a subsidiary of the MSC Group operating in forty-seven African states, unveiled an aggregated investment envelope approaching one billion euros for the port of Pointe-Noire for the 2009–2027 period, thereby sealing…

A strategic announcement amid Brazzaville’s business diplomacy Three thousand entrepreneurs, financiers and policymakers converged on Brazzaville for the fifth edition of the Rencontre des entrepreneurs francophones at the end of June, an event that increasingly doubles as a stage for economic statecraft. Within this setting, Africa Global Logistics, the rebranded successor of Bolloré Africa Logistics, revealed that its cumulative outlay at the port of Pointe-Noire will approach one billion euros by 2027 (Africa Global Logistics press release, 28 June 2024). The timing was not incidental: the Congolese authorities are keen to translate diplomatic visibility into concrete capital flows to diversify…

A leadership transition with continental resonance The annual general meeting of Afreximbank shareholders in Abuja closed with an announcement that reverberated far beyond the conference hall. Dr George Elombi, the Cameroonian jurist who joined the institution nearly three decades ago, was confirmed as the Bank’s fourth President, succeeding Professor Benedict Oramah in September. Delegates from 51 member states broke into sustained applause, acknowledging both Elombi’s long service and the symbolism of seeing a Central African figure at the helm of an organisation whose early leadership was dominated by West and North African technocrats (Afreximbank communiqué, 28 June 2025). Cameroon’s carefully…

Ceremonial Praise and Strategic Arithmetic in Abuja The marble-floored hall of Nigeria’s State House in Abuja seldom hosts applause reserved for bankers, yet the standing ovation offered to Professor Benedict Oramah in late April was no mere formality. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, flanked by cabinet members and visiting heads of mission, hailed Afreximbank as “an anchor of continental sovereignty”, underscoring the institution’s ascent from a mid-sized trade lender to an indispensable arm of Africa’s development machinery (Presidency of Nigeria communiqué, 2024). The numbers justify the rhetoric: assets have climbed from roughly US $5 billion in 2015 to US $43.5 billion…

An intergenerational dilemma framed by fiscal turbulence In recent months, Brazzaville’s discreet diplomatic salons have whispered about the pressures weighing on the Caisse de Retraite des Fonctionnaires, a pillar of the Republic of Congo’s post-independence social contract. Record-high arrears—officially estimated by retirees’ associations at thirty-nine months—epitomise the tension between a rapidly expanding demographic of pensioners and the budgetary discipline necessitated by successive shocks, notably the 2014 oil price slump, the pandemic and the lingering after-effects of regional insecurity (IMF Article IV Consultations 2023). Yet what might appear a purely fiscal imbroglio is in fact an intergenerational question touching national cohesion,…

A geopolitical backdrop to a domestic price battle Inflation is no longer an abstract macroeconomic statistic for the average household in Brazzaville or Pointe-Noire; it is the daily arithmetic of the marketplace. According to the International Monetary Fund’s October 2023 World Economic Outlook, consumer-price growth in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community hovered around 5.7 percent, a level unfamiliar to a region accustomed to single-digit stability. The external shocks are well documented—logistical dislocations triggered by the pandemic, the cascading effects of the war in Ukraine on cereal and fertiliser supplies, and a strengthening US dollar that imported inflation into…

Modest Recovery Signals in 2022 Dataset The National Economic and Financial Committee’s projection of a –1.5 % contraction for 2022, sharply improved from –6.2 % in 2020, has been greeted in Brazzaville as a tangible indicator that the deepest trough of the twin oil and health shocks may be behind the country. While the estimate remains below the 3.7 % expansion envisaged by the CEMAC Commission for the bloc as a whole, it nonetheless marks the first inflection toward growth since the pandemic struck. Analysts at the Banque des États de l’Afrique Centrale note that non-oil value added—particularly in construction,…

A Strategic Ribbon-Cutting in the Bouenza Heartland When President Denis Sassou Nguesso cut the ceremonial ribbon on 27 June in Nkayi, the gesture transcended the usual symbolism attached to industrial inaugurations. The Somdia distillery, erected within two years at a cost of roughly 14 billion FCFA, embodies Brazzaville’s broader quest to recalibrate its economic model away from the historical dependence on hydrocarbons. Diplomats stationed in the sub-region privately observed that, in a single stroke, the Republic of Congo positioned itself as both an agricultural transformer and a nascent clean-fuel stakeholder—a dual identity increasingly prized by international lenders (African Development Bank,…

Strategic consensus around a maturing digital agenda The ordinary budgetary session of the Agence de Développement de l’Économie Numérique (ADEN) convened in Brazzaville on 26 June delivered a pragmatic yet ambitious set of instruments designed to translate presidential directives on digital modernisation into measurable programmes. By simultaneously validating its organic statutes, 2025 budget envelope and a granular activity matrix, the agency has insulated its roadmap from the fiscal uncertainties that often curtail policy continuity across Central Africa. Chairman Ghislain Ebalé reminded the board that “the digital economy is a non-negotiable vector of inclusive growth,” echoing President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s own…

Kintélé Emerges as Francophone Business Hub For three days in late June 2025 the new conference complex on the banks of the Djiri River became the epicentre of Francophone economic diplomacy. More than one thousand delegates from some forty countries converged on Kintélé for the fifth Rencontre des entrepreneurs francophones, a gathering orchestrated by the Alliance des patronats francophones in partnership with the Congolese employers’ union, Unicongo. According to local organisers, the summit generated over a dozen memoranda of understanding worth an estimated 320 million dollars, although exact figures remain to be audited (Jeune Afrique, 2 July 2025). The choice…