Africa

1. S. Africa’s new US offer
2. Rising unemployment
3. US imposes DRC sanctions
4. Sport and hotel bets
5. Etihad Rail eyes Kenya
6. Group opposes plastic cuts
7. Nigeria’s non-oil exports

Turning a landfill into parkland in Abidjan.

S. Africa plans new US trade deal

South Africa said it will submit a revised offer for a US trade deal in an attempt to lower the 30% tariff rate imposed on exports from Africa’s biggest economy. The duty, which came into effect on Aug. 7, is the highest tariff imposed on a sub-Saharan African country.

“The new offer substantively responds to the issues the US has raised” to build on a previous offer made in May, the government said on Tuesday. But the leader of the Democratic Alliance, the second-largest party in South Africa’s coalition government, told Reuters the 30% tariff is likely to remain in place unless Pretoria changes some domestic race policies. US President Donald Trump has previously criticized affirmative action initiatives designed to redress inequalities caused by apartheid.

South African officials have warned the tariff threatens 30,000 jobs in the country, with the key automotive and agricultural sectors most vulnerable. However, JPMorgan said on Tuesday that the levy was likely to have a limited effect on South Africa’s markets because traders have “largely priced in the reality of higher tariff headwinds.”

S. Africa’s unemployment rises

South Africa’s unemployment rate — among the highest in the world — increased for a second consecutive quarter to 33.2%, official data showed. The sectors with the biggest jumps were community and social services, agriculture, and finance.

The results, published on Tuesday, are another blow to South Africa’s year-old governing coalition, which had promised to prioritize lowering unemployment.

The country’s youth population remains particularly vulnerable: 46% of South Africans aged under 34 were unemployed in the second quarter, the same rate as in the first three months of the year.

US targets DRC critical minerals trade

The Trump administration sanctioned four entities over their role in the critical minerals trade in eastern DR Congo as it seeks to implement a peace deal in the conflict-hit region.

The sanctions target PARECO-FF, a Congolese militia group aligned to the DR Congo army that the US Treasury accuses of carrying out illegal mining operations in Rubya between 2022 and 2024. The eastern town is home to DR Congo’s biggest deposit of coltan — the highly sought-after mineral used to make mobile phones, computers, and other electronics — and is now under the control of the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. The other sanction targets are the Congolese mining company CDMC and two Chinese minerals exporters, East Rise and Star Dragon.

While the sanctions might have a limited impact on the militia group in the short term, they would have a more successful hit on the companies who indirectly fund the violence, said Benjamin Mossberg, a partner at Field Focus, a Washington-based advisory group. “This is more than just a toothless press release,” Mossberg told Semafor. “The next step should be looking at the Rwandan or other middle men facilitating this network.”

Ex-NBA exec plans sports hotels

A new $26 million sports-themed hotel in Rwanda that aims to tap into the country’s growing hospitality market will be a template for expanding other sporting businesses across Africa, the former National Basketball Association executive that spearheaded the project told Semafor.

Masai Ujiri, former vice president of NBA franchise Toronto Raptors and a retired basketball player, plans to build a collection of hotels in Africa following the opening of Zaria Court, his company’s first hotel property, in Kigali in July. The 80-room hotel features a 2,000-seat arena for basketball and concerts, two five-a-side football pitches, a gym and wellness center, as well as a sports bar and playground park.

Ujiri’s Zaria Group is backed by the African private equity firm Helios Investment Partners, which manages funds totaling $3 billion. It plans to build at least four more properties modeled on its Rwandan debut, with sports and performance arenas as the anchor. Ujiri said his company would target Johannesburg, Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, and Abidjan for future developments.

Etihad Rail eyes Africa expansion

Etihad Rail is in talks to run freight operations on a China-built railway in Kenya. The potential deal on the Standard Gauge Railway — the East African country’s $5 billion infrastructure project to connect regional economies — comes with ADQ, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund that backs Etihad Rail, looking beyond the domestic market it has largely served thus far in search of growth.

Kenya will need freight traffic of at least 17 million tons a year to “justify a return on investment” to land the freight concession deal, the country’s transport secretary told Bloomberg, with potential for moving Kenyan crude from fields in the north of the country via rail, which would amount to about 3 million tons of freight annually.

Etihad Rail is nearly done building a UAE rail network for freight and passengers, and the 16 year-old company has recently sought more international projects, inking a $2.3 billion deal in 2024 with Jordan and commencing construction on a project that still starts at home: the region’s first cross-border railway to connect Abu Dhabi to the coast of Oman.

Energy group opposes plastics cut

The African Energy Chamber, an advocacy group for the continent’s oil and gas companies, called on African nations to oppose global efforts to cut the production of single-use plastics. Negotiators in Switzerland are meeting in a bid to reach an agreement to reduce global single-use plastics production levels.

The South Africa-based energy chamber said such an agreement “would devastate the petrochemical industry in Africa” if implemented. Angola, Gabon, Ghana, and Senegal — where new oil and gas projects are being developed — would be most affected by the mandate, the AEC said. It called on their governments to “prioritize their energy and industrial needs over external environmental agendas that do not align with Africa’s developmental priorities.” Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, banned the use of single-use plastics in government facilities a year ago.

Nigeria’s non-oil exports surge

The value of Nigeria’s non-oil exports in the first half of 2025 — a 20% year-on-year rise from last year. The majority of non-oil exports were cocoa beans, fertilizer, and cashew nuts, Nigeria’s export promotion agency said. Increased global demand, higher prices, and greater local processing capacity for cocoa in particular drove up the non-oil category of exports. Africa’s top crude oil producer relies on oil sales for 90% of its foreign exchange earnings, but successive governments have sought to diversify the economy by ramping up exports from other industries.

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