In Togo, Orabank’s clients can now access banking services via WhatsApp. The lender launched the service yesterday, October 10, 2022. This is the fruit of an agreement signed last March, by the Oragroup and Semoa, the Lomé-based startup behind the technology. 

In detail, the bank’s clients can now check their balance and request a statement, on WhatsApp. They can also transfer cash to another bank account, via mobile money, and simulate bank loans, without an account manager.

Adopting the technology aligns with Oragroup’s digital transformation strategy–a strategy that aims to make it easier for as many people as possible to access bank services, and foster financial inclusion. “This solution that we are offering today is another step towards our customers and we will keep making efforts, innovation-wise, to make digital banking more accessible, to as many people as possible,” said Guy Martial Awona, MD Orabank Togo.

Commenting on the innovation, Edem Adjamagbo, CEO and Founder of Semoa Group, said it “is proof that the emergence of pan-African champions is no longer a wish but an imminent reality.”

Orabank Togo is the second of Oragroup’s 12 subsidiaries to launch WhatsApp banking. The first was Orabank Guinea.

Esaïe Edoh

M Auto, a firm that makes and sells electric bikes, wants to help Togo transition to electric mobility. The company said so in a statement dated October 11, 2022, relayed by the Ecofin Agency.

"M Auto wants to help drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote a more virtuous mobility in Togo," the company wrote. M Auto claims to have sold and put into circulation 2,000 of its electric bikes and it boasts more than 3 million kilometers traveled in 3 months and has 2,500 orders confirmed and pending delivery.

M Auto’s bikes are made in Africa for Africans. The company affirms that its Commando bikes emit less gas than combustion bikes (5 t of CO2/y). Also, it claims that its recharging stations rely on captive solar networks. 

"Affordable electric mobility, therefore, has a major role to play in reducing carbon emissions in Africa," M Auto wrote in the statement. The firm, it should be emphasized, is supported by the African Transformation and Industrialization Fund (ATIF).

M Auto is committed to the energy transition and sourcing at least 95% of its energy from renewable sources in all its operations, from manufacturing to battery recharging.

This commitment should greatly contribute to Togo’s ambition to emit fewer greenhouse gases, through its “Transition to electric mobility” project launched last month.  Set to be carried out over four years, the project is backed by the Global Environment Fund (GEF) which invested over CFA860 million in it. 

Esaïe Edoh

Ahead of the fifth general people and housing census (RPGH-5), scheduled for this month, 74,629 “basic socio-collective infrastructures” have been geolocalized across the country. Related works took place between July 2021 and April 2022.

The figures concern schools, health centers, banks, shops, water and sanitation facilities, and leisure and culture spaces. They were disclosed by the minister, and adviser to the President of the Republic, Pré Simféitchéou a few days ago. 

According to Simféitchéou, around 400 agents were dispatched to carry out the mission in over 10,000 enumeration areas, in urban and rural areas. 

Talking about the upcoming census, the official added that besides its first goal, which is to count Togolese residents (more than a decade after the last census), the operation should help set up "a geographic information system, that takes into account the basic socio-collective infrastructures, which can serve as decision-making tools in the process of decentralization and land use planning."

Togo exported CFA153.7 billion worth of goods in Q1 2022, up 9.4% YoY. 

Burkina Faso was its biggest buyer over the period. It grabbed 17% of all Togolese exports in the first quarter of this year, according to the latest figures released by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic and Demographic Studies (INSEED). 

Despite the military-political crisis it experienced between January and February, Burkina Faso, whose natural port is Lomé, imported 189,000 tons of goods from Togo, worth CFA26 billion, in the first three months of the year. 

After Burkina Faso, Benin exported the most, by earnings, from Togo–40,000 tons worth CFA16 billion.

Togolese exporters shipped 222,000 tons of goods worth CFA9.3 billion to India, making the subcontinent Togo's third largest client. Surprisingly, the Asian country is followed by Mali, which was under economic sanctions by ECOWAS and UEMOA for the first three months of the year. The Sahelian country imported more than 19,000 tons of goods valued at CFA12 billion. 

The other countries in the top 10 are Ghana, France, Niger, and Nigeria.

Main exports

Togo exported mostly phosphate and its derivatives in Q1 2022, earning the country nearly CFA25 billion or 16.3% of all export revenues. “Plastic bags, sacks, pouches and cones" came in second place with estimated receipts of CFA10.6 billion, or 6.9% of export revenues. 

Togo also shipped out bikes, and soybeans, the latter being the country’s most exported agricultural product. Togo, it should be noted, is a major supplier of beauty and cosmetics products for ECOWAS countries. 

Fiacre E. Kakpo

Thanks to various measures, the Togolese economy has been resilient to ongoing global crises. Sani Yaya, the country’s minister of economy and finance, said so at the opening of the session of the National Credit Council (CNC) which he chaired on October 6, 2022, in Lomé.

According to Yaya, Togo’s public debt has been kept under control, at 61% between the end of 2021 and the middle of 2022, and inflation stood at 7.5% for the first eight months of 2022, average, after 7.8% at the end of June 2022 and 8.2% on 31 March 2021.

However, the persistence of inflationary pressures remains a major concern.

"As you know, the rise in the general price level, which began in 2021, has been accentuated by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and geopolitical tensions, with their consequences on the prices of food and energy products. In most countries, including developed ones, inflation rates are reaching high levels. Some countries have recorded double-digit rates," said Minister Sani Yaya.

Thus, if in general, thanks to the measures taken by the government, the pace of change in the general price level is decelerating at the national level, after the peak reached in March 2022, "the inflation rate remains high, which degrades the purchasing power of households, reduces the profit margins of businesses and could slow the momentum of the post-Covid-19 economic recovery," the official added.

Esaïe Edoh

Between 2011 and 2022, Togo hosted over 14,000 French volunteers who carried out various missions in the country. The National Representative of France Volontaires in Togo, Telngar Rassembeye, revealed this last Friday during the French Volunteer Day.

According to France Volontaires, the number of French volunteers in Togo, increased from 333 in 2011 to 1051 and 1206 in  2017 and 2019, respectively. This represents a growth of 72% between 2011, when Espace Volontaires (EV) launched in Togo, and 2019.

Students, for the most part, the French volunteers have intervened in various sectors, including health, technology, and culture.

"We need a day to celebrate volunteering by highlighting all the actions carried out. It is a day to promote volunteers to communities and host structures and local populations," said Telngar Rassembeye.

Present at the anniversary were the Togolese Minister of Grassroots Development, Youth and Youth Employment Myriam Dossou d'Almeida and the French Ambassador to Togo Jocelyne Caballero. This was an opportunity to celebrate the transition of France Volontaires from an association to a Public Interest Group (GIP). Hence the theme of the day: "Reciprocity: a lever for the revival of international volunteering to face the challenges of our time".

Note that through the principle of reciprocity that began in 2016, 51 young Togolese have been to France to volunteer in various fields.

Esaïe Edoh

In a week exactly, on October 14, Togo will proceed to its first issue on the regional money market for this quarter. According to the schedule released by the UMOA-securities agency, the country will try to raise CFA30 billion through a simultaneous bond issue, with securities having a nominal value of CFA10,000. 

Interest rates for the two issues are respectively 5.75% and 5.90% per year. The securities will mature over five and seven years, respectively. 

Proceeds of the issue aim to ‘cover the financing needs of Togo’s state budget in line with its economic recovery strategy, cushion the impacts of Covid-19, and return to pre-pandemic performances.’

Over the past nine months, Lomé secured CFA407 billion from the WAEMU market, out of CFA550 billion, its target for 2022.

Esaïe Edoh

In Togo, authorization from the government is still necessary to import and use a drone. The reminder came earlier this week, from the ministers of civil security and armies Yark Damehane and Essozima Marguerite Gnakade. 

"For some time, the security services at the borders or on the national territory have been confronted with the phenomenon of importing or anarchic use of drones, both by certain organizations and associations, as well as by individuals, without prior authorization," the officials wrote in a statement.

Unregulated use of drones is “inadmissible”, especially “at a time when the government is making great efforts to fight insecurity”.

To import a drone, authorization from the ministry of security and civil protection is needed, and to use the gadget another permit must be obtained from the Ministry of armies.

Earlier this year, the government started taking steps to regulate the use of drones by civilians.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

More than 2,000 people have been trained at the Garment Training Center -GTC of the PIA-Togo in the past 16 months. The figure was disclosed by sources close to the matter. 

According to GTC’s manager, Sathiyamurthy Rajamanikkam, sales of clothes produced at the facility could begin next January. 

Initially, the executive added, the made-in-Togo clothes produced at GTC will be sold across the ECOWAS, a market of 400 million people. However, later, when factories like Togo Clothing Company (TCC), a subsidiary of Indian cloth maker ITCRmg, come into the country, Europe and US will be targeted. Togo, it should be noted, has preferential duty-free access to the US (via the AGOA), the EU (EBA), the UK (Commonwealth), and China (which recently suppressed 98% of customs duties on goods it imports from Togo).

In line with the ambition to conquer foreign markets, more than 500 new textile workers should join the PIA’s textile park by the end of December 2022. 

"We are delighted to be able to ensure the professionalization of the actors in the textile value chains and to make modern textile techniques and technologies available to them," said Jesse Damsky, PIA's Director General.

Togo, a cotton producer, wants to fully take advantage of its CmiA-certified cotton. For now, however, spinning, weaving, and knitting, which are key steps in making clothes from cotton, are not done locally – and will not be until the end of 2023. In the meantime, the fabrics needed to make clothing are imported. 

As a reminder, textile facilities located at the PIA are required to export at least 70% of their production, with a goal of over $40 million per year in export revenue in the long run.

Fiacre E. Kakpo