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CSquared Celebrates Connecting Africa through 5 Remarkable Years of Success

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CSquared

This week the Management team of CSquared Group celebrates the company’s 5th Anniversary whilst in Cape Town, South Africa

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, November 7, 2022/APO Group/ — 

In Togo, Société d’Infrastructures Numériques (SIN) and Csquared (https://www.CSquared.com/) formed a joint venture (http://bit.ly/3FOSsfb) in a major digital infrastructure transformation initiative that lands Google’s Equiano Cable in Togo. In Liberia, CSquared and USAID enter into a new partnership to construct an open access fiber backbone connecting Liberia, Ivory Coast & Guinea. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), CSquared now operates 100km of fiber in Kinshasa with Africell as anchor customer. An MoU with Société Congolaises des Postes et Télécommunications (SCPT) will land the country’s 2nd Submarine cable and enhance the National fiber backbone network. CSquared embarks on building its West Africa terrestrial backbone, starting with a partnership with the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) (http://bit.ly/3Teq4WH) connecting major cities within Ghana and neighbouring countries. Across Africa, our Cloud Services team is connecting customers to the public cloud providers via leading data centers (PAIX, iColo, Raxio, ADC, Terraco, MainOne, ONIX), providing simplified & tailored access to multi-cloud services.

This week the Management team of CSquared Group celebrates the company’s 5th Anniversary whilst in Cape Town, South Africa attending AfricaCom (http://bit.ly/3f22ajn) – Africa’s leading digital infrastructure gathering that brings together decision makers across the communications technology ecosystem focused on connecting the next billion people on the continent by inclusive, sustainable growth through tech investments.

Commenting on the Anniversary and the company’s achievements Lanre Kolade, CSquared Group Chief Executive Officer shared “It is not just a company anniversary but a family anniversary that has defied all odds to grow stronger and achieve great things together. I am so grateful to my team, our customers and partners, for their support and trust have been the biggest driver towards our continued growth. For emerging markets to fast track their development, communication is key, and the foundation of reliable communication is broadband infrastructure. Countries are now moving towards e-governance, e-health, e-education and those pillars cannot be achieved without the required infrastructure. That’s the gap CSquared aims to fill, ensuring that all African countries have sufficient broadband infrastructure. Our approach ensures that everyone, both the private and the public sector benefits from the infrastructure that is rolled out by CSquared.”

This year the African Development Bank (AfDB) estimated Africa’s infrastructure financing needs to be as much as $170 billion a year by 2025, with an estimated gap of about $100 billion a year. CSquared and its investors Google, Mitsui & Co (Japan), Convergence Partners (South Africa) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC, World Bank Group) play a critical role in supporting Africa achieve its ambitious digital needs.

A great deal has been achieved since 2017 when CSquared, originally a pilot project [Project Link (https://bit.ly/3ta4ZSR)] in Google, became an independent company with existing operations in Uganda and Ghana.

Fast forward 5 remarkable years of success:

TOGO

In March 2022, in the sunny city of Lomé, Togo, CSquared and Société d’Infrastructures Numériques (SIN), a public telecommunications asset company, announced a strategic partnership to create a joint venture (JV) – CSquared Woezon. CSquared Woezon is a Togolese company with a minority public shareholding, 56% owned by CSquared and 44% owned by SIN. The entity is in charge of maintaining and operating Cable Landing Station for Equiano, Google’s subsea internet cable running from Portugal to South Africa with Togo as its first landing in Africa; as well as the existing Lomé metropolitan optical fiber network [e-Gouv]; and the national fiber backbone network [Communauté Electrique du Bénin (CEB)].

This JV demonstrates the company’s commitment and unique ability to partner with African Governments to achieve their national digital development goals. Public Private Partnerships hold the key to upgrading broadband infrastructure to next generation networks and driving the future advancement of ICT in emerging markets.

It is not just a company anniversary but a family anniversary that has defied all odds to grow stronger and achieve great things together

LIBERIA

CSquared is excited to announce today a new partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to establish a 350 km national fiber backbone in Liberia, extending from  the nation’s capital city, Monrovia to the Ivory Coast and Guinea borders, crossing more than 13 cities, and enabling the country’s Internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile network operators (MNOs) to reach over one million Liberians and 50+  businesses and social institutions. The backbone will also provide Liberia with critical redundancy to the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable, currently the nation’s single source for international bandwidth and will become part of CSquared’s West Africa backbone carrying traffic from Liberia through to Nigeria.

This follows CSquared’s hugely successful partnership in 2017 with the Government of Liberia and USAID to bring best-in-class, reliable broadband infrastructure to Monrovia and its environs. The new partnership falls under USAID’s Digital Invest program, part of the U.S. Government’s Digital Connectivity and Cybersecurity Partnership and a flagship project of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment announced by President Biden in June 2022. These interventions are crucial to helping USAID fulfill its mission to help Liberia end extreme poverty and build resilient democratic institutions and to build open, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystems.

Democratic Republic of Congo

The company’s focus has also shifted to include Africa’s 2nd largest country by land mass, DRC, where at a recent World Bank connectivity conference held in Kinshasa, it was estimated that between 8 to 9 billion US Dollars will be needed to fully fiberise the DRC. CSquared with its development partners intends to significantly participate in this funding opportunity. In October, CSquared kicked off this commitment with the signing of two major deals.

The first was an MoU with SCPT (Société Congolaises des Postes et Télécommunications), enabling the Government’s goal of driving the country’s digital transformation by leveraging government assets through Public Private Partnerships. Our Accord Cadre will initially have 3 key components: to facilitate the landing of a 2nd Submarine Cable in DRC similar to our successful collaboration with Google and the Government of Togo landing Equiano in Lomé, Togo; the construction of a second Cable Landing Station [CLS] to connect to the Equiano Cable; and to expand and upgrade the National Fiber backbone network.

The second was with Africell, CSquared’s first anchor customer in DRC. Africell is a fast-growing mobile network operator with a pan-African footprint. Providing fast and reliable mobile network coverage and related technology services to over 16 million subscribers with a mission to make a positive everyday difference to customers, Africell and CSquared partner to impact lives through the provision of affordable, accessible and good quality telecoms products and services.

CLOUD

In the cloud connectivity and data center ecosystem, CSquared is a forward-thinking enabler. As an open-access network provider, CSquared has partnered with carrier-neutral data centers to make reliable connectivity available on demand to all ISPs and MNOs, who access large amounts of critical data in these data centers and the public cloud. These providers can then focus on delivering quality services to their end users while benefiting from our open access network, providing wide and seamless coverage to data centers and hosting facilities across the continent. A data center located PoP caters for layering Cloud offerings to provide simplified and tailored access, migration & consumption of multi-cloud services to businesses cost effectively to drive digital transformation across Africa.

Africa is undergoing impressive urban growth and is envisioned to reach a population of 2.4 billion people within the next few decades, favouring cities over rural areas. By 2030, it is expected that 6 of the world’s 41 megacities will be African. The urbanization process undoubtedly has the power to transform an economy. However, it also comes with a set of challenges such as the need for mobility and access to urban services, access to clean water and sanitation, public health, safety issues as well as policy-related matters.

Lanre Kolade remains enthusiastic about the company’s future and its role in directly tackling this challenge because as he states “If there is one thing CSquared has proven over the past 5 years, it is that we build broadband-enabling infrastructure for the future that guarantees a better, safer, faster customer experience, democratizing connectivity and achieving #InternetForAll. Get ready Africa, the future is promising and exciting.”

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of CSquared.

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Afreximbank extends US$10-million facility to Azania Bank to support Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Tanzania

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16 hours ago

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September 17, 2026

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Afreximbank

Delivered under Afreximbank’s Export SME Development Programme (ESDP), the facility will enable Azania Bank to provide eligible SMEs with both working capital and medium-term financing to support business expansion, asset acquisition and pre- and post-export operations

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, September 17, 2026/APO Group/ –African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) (www.Afreximbank.com) has extended a US$10-million finance facility to Azania Bank of Tanzania (Azania Bank) to improve access to finance for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) across Tanzania’s export value chains and to strengthen their participation in regional and international trade

 




  

Delivered under Afreximbank’s Export SME Development Programme (ESDP), the facility will enable Azania Bank to provide eligible SMEs with both working capital and medium-term financing to support business expansion, asset acquisition and pre- and post-export operations. This is expected to boost productivity and enhance participation in regional and global value chains, while addressing persistent financing gaps that constrain SME growth and export development.

Azania Bank will on-lend the funds to eligible SMEs engaged in export-oriented activities across key sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, trade, technology, logistics and value-added exports. The facility will enhance the bank’s ability to support the growing financing needs of SMEs and emerging businesses that play a vital role in Tanzania’s industrialisation and trade agenda.

The initiative is expected to support business growth, create employment opportunities, improve export readiness and strengthen Tanzania’s participation in regional value chains. It will also help SMEs leverage opportunities arising from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by enhancing their capacity to participate effectively in cross-border trade and regional supply networks.

SMEs are the backbone of Africa’s productive economy and are critical to driving industrialisation

In addition to financing, Afreximbank will provide participating SMEs with structured business development support, including export readiness training, financial management advisory services, market linkage opportunities, digitalisation support and access to SME-focused knowledge and networking platforms. These interventions are designed to strengthen enterprise resilience, improve competitiveness and enable SMEs to scale sustainably.

Mrs. Oluranti Doherty, Managing Director, Export Development, Afreximbank commented: “SMEs are the backbone of Africa’s productive economy and are critical to driving industrialisation, value addition and trade-led growth. However, many businesses continue to face significant barriers to accessing the financing, market opportunities and technical support needed to scale and compete effectively”.

 

“Through the Export SME Development Programme, Afreximbank is partnering with financial institutions such as Azania Bank to provide not only financing, but also the capacity building and market access solutions required for SMEs to grow, export and integrate into regional and global value chains. We believe this partnership will contribute meaningfully to Tanzania’s export development objectives and help unlock new opportunities for local enterprises under the AfCFTA.”

Mr. Yahaya Mbanka, Director, Business Development, Azania Bank Plc, said: “This facility will strengthen our ability to provide Tanzanian SMEs with the financing they need to grow their businesses, invest in productive capacity and pursue export opportunities. Our partnership with Afreximbank will also enable us to offer support that responds more closely to the needs of businesses operating across Tanzania’s key value chains.”

The facility which supports Afreximbank’s mandate to promote trade, industrialisation and export development across Africa, also aligns with Tanzania’s priorities around domestic production, value addition, export diversification and regional trade integration.

Afreximbank’s 2025 Afreximbank Annual Trade Development Effectiveness Report (https://apo-opa.co/4hgL25z) (ATDER) shows that the Bank extended over US$960 million to more than 58,000 SMEs across Africa. The initiative which prioritized women- and youth-led enterprises among others, delivered trade finance facilities that empowered businesses to obtain the capital necessary to scale, engage in cross-border trade, and expand into new markets.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Afreximbank.

 

 




 

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Hong Kong’s 2026 Policy Address: A Strategic Vision for a Bright New Era

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23 hours ago

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September 17, 2026

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Hong Kong

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 16 September 2026 – Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, John Lee, today (September 16) announced his fifth Policy Address, putting forward a series of measures to create development opportunities and enhance the well-being of the people.

“This year marks the opening year of the National 15th Five-Year Plan. In the thick of accelerating global changes not seen in a century, the vibrant momentum driven by our country’s robust strength, enormous market and high-quality development presents Hong Kong with boundless opportunities. We will better develop our economy and boost social well-being, starting a bright new chapter for Hong Kong,” Mr Lee said.

 




  

Entitled “A Strategic Vision for a Bright New Era, Driving Reform and Boosting Development, Unleashing Opportunities and Enhancing Livelihood”, the Policy Address takes the First Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (2026-2030) (Hong Kong’s First Five-Year Plan) as its blueprint, and proposes numerous key measures focusing on five major development opportunities to advance high-quality development.

To attract and retain high-calibre talent, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government will expedite the development of the Northern Metropolis University Town to strengthen the city’s position as an international education hub. The HKSAR Government will also increase the research postgraduate places by around 30 per cent and the quota for government scholarships by 200, and establish five new major academies for training international talent: the International Clinical Trial Academy, Maritime Academy, Hong Kong International Legal Talents Training Academy, Hong Kong Intellectual Property Academy and Hong Kong International Academy of Policing.

To promote industry development, the Policy Address proposes to accelerate development of an international gold trading market and to explore a proposal to provide tax concessions for qualifying activities within the gold and commodity trading ecosystem. The HKSAR Government will also announce details of the new Renminbi-denominated and physically settled gold futures contracts; explore the possibility of increasing the Exchange Fund’s gold holdings, and gradually transfer its physical gold holdings to designated vaults appointed by the Hong Kong Precious Metals Central Clearing Company Limited.

A number of policies are proposed to promote industry development, including introducing specialty insurance (e.g. commodity, commercial aerospace, etc.); injecting funding into the Artificial Intelligence Subsidy Scheme to support the development of the intelligent computing industry; accelerating the adoption of medical innovation and industry chain development to enable the public to benefit from better and newer drugs; and fostering a new economic landscape for the low-altitude and emerging industries, such as commercial aerospace.

The Government is developing six special industry parks, including the Loop Hong Kong Park, San Tin Technopole, Hung Shui Kiu Industry Park, Sandy Ridge Data Facility Cluster and Hung Shui Kiu/Ha Tsuen modern logistics cluster. Land is also earmarked for building an advanced construction industry park to increase investment opportunities for enterprises.

To attract enterprises to establish a foothold in Hong Kong, tax concessions will be granted on the basis of the value brought by enterprises, instead of solely considering the industry sector. The Government will introduce an amendment bill this year, providing preferential tax rates of 5 per cent, or half-rate, for selected enterprises operating in key sectors such as finance, advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, as well as research and development, headquarters activities and logistics and supply chain management.

The HKSAR Government will fully support the work of the International Organization for Mediation headquartered in Hong Kong, and build a global capital of mediation. It will also drive the establishment of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law in Hong Kong, support the Judiciary to advance the development of the International Commercial Court, and establish the “Strategy Committee on Intellectual Property Trading Development” to assist the Government in formulating strategies and support measures for the promotion of intellectual property trading.

Regarding international co-operation, two United Nations (UN) organisations, the centre of excellence on global advanced manufacturing and the Office on Drugs and Crime’s GlobE Network Asia Pacific Regional Bureau, will establish their presence in Hong Kong respectively. Elsewhere, the new WestK Performing Arts Centre, scheduled to open next year, will feature four performance venues built to the highest international theatre standards, while Asian and international sports associations will be encouraged to establish a presence in Hong Kong.

“Today, Hong Kong is at a critical juncture in advancing from stability to prosperity. We are fully aware that formulating a comprehensive, strategic roadmap is integral to our long-term development. The Government has been persistent in mapping our way by driving development through reform. The primary goal of our policies is to enable economic development that can benefit the people of Hong Kong, and meet their aspirations for a better life,” Mr Lee said.
 




 

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Hong Kong’s First Five-Year Plan sets out long-term vision for development

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23 hours ago

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September 17, 2026

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Hong Kong

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 16 September 2026 – Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, John Lee, today (September 16) announced the First Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (2026-2030). This inaugural Five-Year Plan for Hong Kong is of monumental significance, which aims to enhance the city’s all-round strategic development in the medium- to long-term. Priority initiatives include upholding and enhancing the executive-led system, improving the efficacy of governance and proactively aligning Hong Kong with national development strategies in order to fully grasp the opportunities for growth and prosperity.
 




 

“Not only is it an action agenda for Hong Kong to better capitalise on the aggregate advantages arising from national and international opportunities, but also a pathway for continuously enhancing social well-being. By formulating the Five-Year Plan, it shall shed light on Hong Kong’s directions of development, optimise resource allocation, enhance social expectation certainty, and better protect social well-being as well as the interests of investors across the world. Hong Kong will become a more attractive, vibrant and opportunity-rich world city,” Mr Lee said.

Hong Kong will continue to boost economic growth led by “four centres and one hub”, namely its status as an international financial centre, international trade centre, international maritime centre and international aviation hub, while expediting the city’s development into an international innovation and technology (I&T) centre. Hong Kong will also become an international hub for high-calibre talent, attracting global capital, talent, and financial enterprises.

Hong Kong will continue to leverage its advantages as an international city. With the unique edge as a common law jurisdiction under the principle of “one country, two systems”, Hong Kong will deepen its development into a centre for international legal and dispute resolution services, including a global capital of mediation and hub for high-calibre legal talent. Hong Kong will develop a regional intellectual property trading centre, an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange, a centre for major international sports events and a core demonstration zone for multi-destination tourism.

A pleasant, vibrant and innovative Northern Metropolis will be developed through an approach that is planning-oriented, infrastructure-led, industry-driven, and people-oriented. Development objectives revolve around the Northern Metropolis University Town, I&T, industry, and providing an environment suitable for living, work, and travel.

Hong Kong will continue to participate in the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) in terms of both “hard” and “soft” connectivity. This includes taking forward infrastructure plans, such as cross-boundary railway projects, while also enhancing alignment rules and mechanisms within the GBA. To achieve “connectivity of hearts” among the residents of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, Hong Kong will advance collaboration in areas such as health care, elderly care, environmental protection, sports, culture and tourism, establishing the GBA as an international first-class bay area with global influence. At the same time, Hong Kong actively participates in the work of international organisations, and fully participates in the high-quality co-operation under the Belt and Road Initiative, so as to create an international collaboration network.

The Five-Year Plan sets out clearly the strategic direction in livelihood-related areas such as education, youth and women’s development, a harmonious and inclusive society, health care, housing, strengthened support for the disadvantaged groups, labour protection, elderly care, green transformation. This will strengthen the sense of fulfilment, happiness, and security in the community, enabling people to benefit from the high-quality development of the country and the city.

“The Government will stay committed to the ‘people-oriented’ ethos, strive relentlessly to enhance social well-being, and sustain economic development, so as to build a Hong Kong that is more open, more inclusive, more liberal, more prosperous and safer,” Mr Lee concluded.

For the full document of Hong Kong’s First Five-Year Plan and related information, please visit the dedicated website (www.hk5yplan.gov.hk).
 




 

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