African governments must use the current golden opportunity to get their finances in order ahead of the withdrawal of quantitative easing (QE). This was the view of Samad Sirohey, the head of debt capital markets for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa at Citigroup, who was speaking at the bank’s media and community summit in Dubai. "At some point soon, QE is going to be unwound. When it does, the world of easy money we have become accustomed to is going to end and the competition for capital will increase," said Sirohey. Evidently, these concerns weighed on the mind of Reserve Bank deputy governor Daniel Mminele, who spoke at a seminar hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Tuesday. In a speech titled "The impact of a changing global environment on African economies", Mminele described "downside risks" to the local economy and the broader emerging-market spectrum flowing from "escalating trade tensions" and a "tightening of global financial conditions". "O...

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