«Договори, що існують, залишаються в силі… Оплата в рублях неприпустима, оскільки вони укладені в євро та доларах»
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The Democratic Republic of Congo this week became the seventh country to join the East African Community. The regional trade bloc, which includes Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda, now reaches a quarter of Africa’s population, stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic.

The 90 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo will be able to move freely and do business in six other African countries.

The leaders of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda welcomed Congo to the East African Community in a ceremony Monday. 

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta spoke, stressing cooperation as the group’s cornerstone.

“I proudly and warmly welcome our brothers and sisters from the Democratic Republic of Congo to the East African Community. We look forward to joining hands in strengthening our community together. Working together, we have more to gain than when we are separate,” Kenyatta said.

Ezra Munyambonera, an economic researcher at the Economic Policy Research Center, says Congo’s addition to the EAC will benefit all the countries in the bloc.

“It (the DRC) has a lot of resources [and it] joining the East Africa Community adds more to microeconomic conditions and microeconomic stability of the region in terms of foreign earnings and attracting investments in the region for wider economic growth,” Munyambonera said. 

The mineral-rich nation is a member of two more regional blocs, the Southern African Development Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, or COMESA. 

Erastus Mwencha, a former secretary-general of COMESA, says the continent needs to scale up its production capabilities to benefit from integration and take advantage of its natural resources. 

“The tradable is not that much and so the region needs to develop trade with production, to really go beyond just looking at trade within but also to cater [to] the production aspect. The economies are not deep enough, we tend to produce primary products and because of that, they are not very much integrated,” Mwencha said.

The countries in the EAC bloc have not been able to fully establish a customs union, and while they are working on having a common currency by 2023, experts say that deadline likely will not be met. 

Mwencha says the DRC technology sector will provide more opportunities for entrepreneurs.   

“Whether you are looking at banking industries, fintech, because it’s a big country, which requires the banks to communicate throughout the country, or other services such as the education sector, health sector, there is a lot, in other words, of e-services,” Mwencha said.

As part of the East African Community, the DRC will enjoy lower tariffs and administrative barriers, something it hasn’t experienced for decades, despite using the ports of Mombasa, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to import most of its goods.
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«Усі заявки будуть ретельно опрацьовані, аби після нашої перемоги відбудова була системною»
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An inflation gauge closely monitored by the Federal Reserve jumped 6.4% in February compared with a year ago, with sharply higher prices for food, gasoline and other necessities squeezing Americans’ finances.

The figure reported Thursday by the Commerce Department was the largest year-over-year rise since January 1982. Excluding volatile prices for food and energy, so-called core inflation increased 5.4% in February from 12 months earlier.

Robust consumer demand has combined with shortages of many goods to fuel the sharpest price jumps in four decades. Escalating the inflation pressures, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted global oil markets and accelerated prices for wheat, nickel and other key commodities.

The inflation spike took a toll on consumers, whose spending in February rose just 0.2%, down from a much larger 2.7% gain in January. Adjusted for inflation, spending actually fell 0.4% last month.

The Federal Reserve responded this month to the inflation surge by raising its benchmark short-term interest rate by a quarter-point from near zero, and it’s likely to keep raising it well into next year. Because its rate affects many consumer and business loans, the Fed’s rate hikes will make borrowing more expensive and could weaken the economy over time.

Michael Feroli of JPMorgan is among economists who now think the Fed will raise its key rate by an aggressive half-point in both May and June. The central bank hasn’t raised its benchmark rate by a half-point in two decades, a sign of how concerned it has become about the persistent surge in inflation.

On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.6% from January to February, up slightly from the previous month’s increase of 0.5%. Core prices rose 0.4%, down from a 0.5% increase in January.

Gas prices have soared in the past month in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion, which led the United Kingdom and the Biden administration to ban Russia’s oil exports. The cost of a gallon of gas shot up to a national average of $4.24 a gallon Wednesday, according to AAA. That’s up 63 cents from a month ago, when it was $3.61.

Thursday’s report follows a more widely monitored inflation gauge, the consumer price index, that was issued earlier this month. The CPI jumped to 7.9% in February from a year ago, the sharpest such increase in four decades.

Many economists still expect inflation to peak in the coming months. In part, that’s because price spikes that occurred last year, when the economy widely reopened, will begin to make the year-over-year price increases appear smaller. Yet Fed officials project that inflation, as measured by its preferred gauge, will still be a comparatively high 4.3% by the end of this year.
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The ruble is no longer rubble.

The Russian ruble by Wednesday had bounced back from the fall it took after the U.S. and European allies moved to bury the Russian economy under thousands of new sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has resorted to extreme financial measures to blunt the West’s penalties and inflate his currency.

While the West has imposed unprecedented levels of sanctions against the Russian economy, Russia’s Central Bank has jacked up interest rates to 20% and the Kremlin has imposed strict capital controls on those wishing to exchange their rubles for dollars or euros.

It’s a monetary defense Putin may not be able to sustain as long-term sanctions weigh down the Russian economy. But the ruble’s recovery could be a sign that the sanctions in their current form are not working as powerfully as Ukraine’s allies counted on when it comes to pressuring Putin to pull his troops from Ukraine. It also could be a sign that Russia’s efforts to artificially prop up its currency are working by leveraging its oil and gas sector.

The ruble was trading at roughly 85 to the U.S. dollar, roughly where it was before Russia started its invasion a month ago. The ruble had fallen as low as roughly 150 to the dollar on March 7, when news emerged that the Biden administration would ban U.S. imports of Russian oil and gas.

Speaking to Norway’s parliament on Wednesday, Ukraine’s president urged Western allies to inflict still greater financial pain on Russia.

“The only means of urging Russia to look for peace are sanctions,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message from his besieged country. He added: “The stronger the sanctions packages are going to be, the faster we’ll bring back peace.”

Increasingly, European nations’ purchases of Russian oil and natural gas are coming under scrutiny as a loophole and lifeline for the Russian economy.

“For Russia, everything is about their energy revenues. It’s half their federal budget. It’s the thing that props up Putin’s regime and the war,” said Tania Babina, an economist at Columbia University who was born in Ukraine.

Babina is currently working with a group of 200 Ukrainian economists to more accurately document how effective the West’s sanctions are in stymying Putin’s war-making capabilities.

The ruble has also risen amid reports that the Kremlin has been more open to cease-fire talks with Ukraine. U.S. and Western officials have expressed skepticism about Russia’s announcement that it would dial back operations.

President Joe Biden promoted the success of the sanctions — some of the toughest ever imposed on a nation — while he was in Poland last week. “The ruble almost is immediately reduced to rubble,” Biden said.

Sanctions on Russian financial institutions and companies, on trade and on Putin’s power brokers were crushing the country’s economic growth and prompting hundreds of international companies to stop doing business there, Biden noted.

Russian efforts to counter those sanctions by propping up the ruble can only go so far.

Russia’s Central Bank cannot keep raising interest rates because doing so will eventually choke off credit to businesses and borrowers. At some point, individuals and businesses will develop ways to go around Russia’s capital controls by moving money in smaller amounts. As the penalties depress the Russian economy, economists say that will eventually weigh down the ruble. Without these efforts, Russia’s currency would almost certainly be weaker.

But Russia’s oil and gas exports have continued to Europe as well as to China and India. Those exports have acted as an economic floor for the Russian economy, which is dominated by the energy sector. In the European Union, a dependence on Russian gas for electricity and heating has made it significantly more difficult to turn off the spigot, which the Biden administration did when it banned the relatively small amount of petroleum that the U.S. imports from Russia.

“The U.S. has already banned imports of Russian oil and natural gas, and the United Kingdom will phase them out by the end of this year. However, these decisions will not have a meaningful impact unless and until the EU follows suit,” wrote Benjamin Hilgenstock and Elina Ribakova, economists with the Institute of International Finance, in a report released Wednesday.

Hilgenstock and Ribakova estimate that if the EU, Britain and the U.S. were to ban Russian oil and gas, the Russian economy could contract more than 20% this year. That’s compared with projections for up to a 15% contraction, as sanctions stand now.

Knowing this, Putin has greatly leveraged Europe’s dependence on its energy exports to its advantage. Putin has called for Russia’s Central Bank to force foreign gas importers to purchase rubles and use them to pay state-owned gas supplier Gazprom. It’s unclear whether Putin can make good on his threat.

The White House and economists have argued that the impact of sanctions takes time, weeks or months for full effect as industries shut down due to a lack of materials or capital or both. But the administration’s critics say the ruble’s recovery shows the White House needs to do more.

“The ruble’s rebound would seem to indicate that U.S. sanctions haven’t effectively crippled Russia’s economy, which is the price Putin should have to pay for his war,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.

“To give Ukraine a fighting chance, the U.S. must sever Putin’s revenue stream by cutting off Russian oil and gas sales globally,” Toomey said in an email to The Associated Press.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, said Wednesday that lawmakers are considering ways to expand the sanctions Biden recently imposed on members of the Russian parliament “and probably widen that to other political players.” Brown, D-Ohio, said lawmakers also are weighing more penalties against banks.

Western leaders, under Biden’s encouragement, embraced sanctions as their toughest weapon to try to compel Russia to reverse its invasion of Ukraine, which is not a member of NATO and not protected under that bloc’s mutual defense policy.

Some of the allies now acknowledge their governments may need to redouble financial punishment against Russia.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that the Group of Seven major industrial nations should “intensify sanctions with a rolling program until every single one of (Putin’s) troops is out of Ukraine.”

But that’s a tougher ask for other European countries such as Germany, which depend on Russia for vital natural gas and oil. The EU overall gets 10% of its oil from Russia and more than one-third of its natural gas.

Many of those countries have pledged to wean themselves off that dependence — but not immediately.

If European nations did move more quickly off Russian petroleum, wrote analyst Charles Lichfield of the Atlantic Council, “a more comprehensive embargo from Europe would threaten Russia’s current account surplus — suddenly making it more difficult to pay public-sector salaries and wage war.”

He noted that “such an outcome may be beyond the reach of Western consensus.”
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Щодо Росії, то серйозні економічні санкції, накладені на неї Заходом, означатимуть, що зростання буде нульовим, додали в ЄБРР
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Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine has not only created one of the world’s most tragic humanitarian crises but resulted in economic devastation that will reverberate far beyond Ukraine’s borders.
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Сторони обговорили, зокрема, підтримку Вашингтона, в тому числі військову
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For Mumbai resident Shailesh Kambli a childhood dream is about to translate into reality. The 40-year-old is the third generation of his family living in a cramped, 15-square meter room along with his parents, brother and sister-in-law.

These tenements are housed in dilapidated buildings that stretch across about 37 hectares in the heart of India’s financial capital, where real estate is among the most expensive in the world.

All around the BDD Chawls, as they are called, prime commercial and residential buildings have mushroomed in recent decades as India’s financial capital, home to more than 20 million people, developed at a frenetic pace.

“Whenever I went out, I wanted to own a house, however tiny, in one these buildings,” Kambli recalls. “I even told my uncle that one day I will live in such a place.”

Now that aspiration is within his grasp.

Under a massive $2 billion redevelopment project, the 16,000 dingy settlements built over four floors will be pulled down to make way for high rise buildings in which the occupants will swap their living quarters for a 46-square meter apartment.

It is part of ambitious plans that space-starved Mumbai has long pursued with limited success — clearing up prime land on which old structures, shanties and slums sit to replace them with tall buildings that besides residential units, include office blocks and shopping malls.

Some urban planners however have raised concerns that the project will add enormous pressure in an already crowded city that is short on infrastructure.

The BDD Chawls, where the rooms built by the British a century ago for migrant cotton mill workers stretch on both sides of a corridor, are in urgent need of a revamp.

Inside most homes, a curtain separates the counter at one end that serves as a kitchen from the rest of the space that doubles as a bedroom and a living room. Televisions are mounted over the bed or in a corner. Two bathrooms serve the 20 rooms in each block. The occupants pay a meager rent to the government.

The elderly often spend their day in the corridor between the rooms where clothes hang for drying, or in a courtyard outside as they chat or look after small children, while the young go out to work.

These days, residents sometimes stop by at a sample flat that is showcased opposite one of the blocks to take a peek into what the future may hold.

“I don’t know when my turn will come. It may still take years. But it will be great to have a modern flat,” said 55-year-old Bhagwan Sawant as he proudly points to the neat kitchen, the two bedrooms and two attached toilets.

The new complexes will also have a hospital, hostels, schools, and gyms. “The work has started on the first building and it will be ready in three years,” said Prashant Dhatrak, the executive engineer of the project. “But the entire development will take seven years.”

The redevelopment project took more than two decades to get off the ground after it was first proposed.

However, some urban planners point out that Central Mumbai, where the project is coming up, is already congested with high rise buildings and question how it will bear the additional pressure of more such complexes. They say that in a city with the highest population density in the country, too much of the land is often handed over to developers for residential and commercial complexes instead of making public parks.

“Cities cannot be transformed in this way. Redevelopment is necessary but rebuilding has to be done in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner,” said Sulakshana Mahajan, who as a member of the Mumbai Transformation Support Unit, a state government think-tank set up in 2005, was involved in initial proposals for the redevelopment of the tenements. The think tank was shut down in 2019.

“Our initial idea was not to increase density in the area and to restrict the development for existing residents. But under the new plan, there are too many buildings being constructed,” said Mahajan. “Open spaces available per person will be drastically shrunk and the distance between buildings is too little. It will also create a huge strain on services such as water supply, sanitation and transportation.”

In an island city with little space to grow except vertically, the search for land has intensified in the last two decades. Authorities have also proposed clearing out Asia’s biggest slum, Dharavi, that sits on two square kilometers of prime space to replace it with skyscrapers and shopping malls, but the plan has made little headway so far.

In the BDD Chawls, however the larger question of sustainability is not on the minds of those who have long lived with shared toilets, but only a sense of anticipation. At the same time, there is a creeping sense that a way of life that revolved around the community will end when they eventually move out.

“Here, I never have to worry about my mother. All of us work, but we know that someone will look after her if she is unwell,” said Kambli. “But when we shut the door in the new flat, no one will know what is happening inside.”

“You just give one shout here and everyone gathers,” laughs Ranjana Gurav. “When there are marriages or celebrations or a problem, we are all there to help each other.”
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