The Urban Center for Business and Entrepreneurship (CUBE), an innovative business incubator based in Lomé, recently launched its private equity fund "KI U-INVEST" with the support of E-agribusiness, an agro-technology company.

The CFA10 million fund will finance Togolese and African SMEs. Projects backed must have passed the pilot phase and have been rolled out for at least six months. They must have well-defined customers, have validated a few sales, have existing contracts or clients that have letters of intent. 

SMEs meeting these criteria can apply latest by March 31, 2022. Two to five applicants will be selected.

"This will mainly be an Equity fund, providing credits of loans of honor with the support of business angels, local and international technical and financial partners,” CUBE indicated. "In addition to financing, SMEs picked for the KI U-INVEST Fund will benefit from an incubation program (managerial, technical, legal ...) that will help them meet the expectations of partners and capitalize on the funding that will be released,” the incubator revealed.

Preferred applicants must operate in the following sectors: agriculture and food chains, health, construction and public works, energy, financial services and fintech, biotechnology, education, and traditional industries (free zone: cosmetics, building materials, packaging, trade and marketing, import-export, telecoms, transport and logistics, wicks). 

Apply here

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

Togolese authorities are working on a project to make municipalities, especially in the outskirts of Grand Lomé, more attractive and modern. The project, Local Urbanism Plan (PLU), was launched last Friday in Noépé, the chief town of the Avé 2 municipality. 

Backed by the World Bank and steered by the ministry of urban planning, housing, and land reform, the project specifically aims to help local communities better regulate the use of their lands, in addition to bolstering their housing stock to meet the growing demand. Land reserves will be mobilized to this end. 

"The launch of this Local Urbanism Plan (PLU) project reflects the paradigm shift that we usually adopt in the development of urban and spatial planning tools," said the minister of urban planning, Koffi Tsolenyanu, who presided the launch.

The PLU, the ministry believes, will ease the development of public investment projects, make the two pilot municipalities (Avé 2 and Zio 2) it will cover more attractive, but also improve the living standards of people concerned and people living in the Greater Lomé area. 

"Indeed, the goal of the initial urban development program was always to provide all towns with more than 5,000 inhabitants with a Master Plan for Urban Development and Planning (SDAU). But, in the era of full decentralization of our country, we need to change our approach, to cover all of our municipalities leveraging local urbanism plans,” Tsolenyanu added. 

The project’s launching ceremony was an opportunity to present expected results to actors of the urban planning and land sector, as well as to people who will benefit from it. 

In the long run, the PLU should expand to all 117 municipalities of Togo.

Operations at the dry port of the Adetikopé industrial platform (PIA) began on January 16, 2022. According to the maritime economy ministry which revealed the news, the port which spans 20 ha can host 12,500 containers and serve as a relay-point for containers, pending their delivery to landlocked countries.

The infrastructure should help free space at Lomé’s main port. It will be used for the handling and transshipment of goods that are coming from or being sent to landlocked nations in the region.

"The dry port of Adétikopé is OPERATIONAL today! CMA CGM will deliver its unloaded containers on-site pending their transfer to hinterland countries. Togo is on the way to becoming a leading logistics hub in the sub-region," said the ministry.

By commissioning the new platform, Togo aims to strengthen its position, in line with its goal of becoming a first-class logistics hub at the regional level.

Togo plans to repay, this month, CFA29 billion to clear part of its debt on the UMOA-securities market. The information was disclosed in the cumulative balance sheet of this market. 

The payment breaks down into CFA22 billion as principal and CFA6.99 billion as interest. 

It should be noted that throughout 2021 the country reimbursed nearly 60% of the funds it borrowed on the regional money market that year. The exact amount is 334 billion out of 557 billion raised. The repaid amount included 72 billion of interest.

About a week ago, Togo carried out its first issue on the UMOA-securities market and retained CFA27.5 billion (while seeking CFA25 billion) out of CFA77 billion raised.

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This year, Africa must make financial inclusion a priority. Mazamesso Assih, Togo’s minister for financial inclusion and the informal sector, claimed in a recent statement. 

According to the official, there are three main reasons African nations must focus on financial inclusion. First, making financial services more accessible fosters the empowerment of the most vulnerable people, women especially. “Women,” Assih said, “are disproportionately affected by financial exclusion.” “Including them requires specific measures and greatly benefits society,” she added.

The second thing financial inclusion can help tackle are criminal networks. "Moving from an exclusively monetary economy to a digital financial infrastructure makes it easier for authorities to trace transactions and deal with smugglers and traffickers, most of whom thrive by exploiting the monetary economy," the Togolese minister stressed.

Lastly, financial inclusion will boost private and public sector connectivity for sustainable growth. In this regard, Mazamesso Assih urged African governments to "support African fintech entrepreneurs whose start-ups can transform the economy and society, especially if they have the right channels to collaborate with telecom giants and big banks."

In her statement, the minister pointed the example of Togo, saying it took various steps to improve inclusion nationwide. These include microcredit programs, digital banking, entrepreneurship incentives, and financial education. 

Esaïe Edoh

The Artisanal fishing port of Lomé (POPEL) caught over 4,000 tons of fish in 2021, up around 18% from 3,450 t in 2020. The figure was recently disclosed by the Ministry of Maritime Economy and Fisheries.

"The growth can be explained by the attractiveness of the new port, inaugurated in 2019, which offers a modern framework to the actors of the fishery," said the Minister in charge, Edem Kokou Tengue.

In detail, the port recorded its biggest catches in July (511 tons), November (465), and June (430), while March and February recorded the lowest numbers, 166 and 191 tons respectively. 

The POPEL was built two years ago, in Gbetsogbe-Baguida, an industrial zone. The infrastructure which was established to boost fishing in the country can host up to 300 pirogues and employ 8,000 people including fishermen, processors, and fishmongers. 

In Togo, over 20,000 people work in the fishing industry and the latter contributes nearly 4.5% of GDP, according to the latest data available.

Over the past year, 13,770 new businesses were established. The figure, a new record, is up 9% compared to 12,500 businesses created in 2020, according to data from the Centre de formalités des Entreprises or CFE (Center for Business Formalities) compiled by Togo First.

In detail, in Q1 2021, 4,087 companies were created against 3,224 in Q2, 3,495 in Q3, and 2,964 in Q4. January was the month where the most businesses were created – 1,390 – and December was the month to record the least registrations: 817 

Also, out of the 13,770 that were registered at the CFE in 2021, 11,629 are owned by Togolese. This is 16% more than the number recorded the year before, knowingly 9,701. While Togolese-owned businesses rose, foreigners opened fewer businesses in the country last year. From 2,831 in 2020, the number of businesses created by them slumped by about 24% to stand at 2,141 in 2021.

Another remarkable fact is that more women officially started businesses last year than in 2020. Indeed, the CFE data indicates that in 2021, women created 3,793 rbusinesses, against 3,426 the year before (+10%).

However, it appears that men registered far more businesses than women in the last 12 months, exactly 9,977 or 72% of the total recorded.

In addition, the number of businesses registered by natural persons stood at 8,327, against 5,443 for legal entities.

The positive performance recorded amid the Covid-induced economic and health crisis is attributable to several reforms introduced by the government to improve the business climate. Such reforms include notably reducing the time and cost needed to set up a business as well as digitization of formalities.

Esaïe Edoh