According to Moody’s rating agency Head of Sovereign Ratings Alastair Wilson, the year 2018 had more rating downgrades than upgrades. This was fueled more by rising geopolitical tensions exacerbated by the United States – China trade war, brexit concerns in the EU and the Argentina debt crisis. Wilson said politics will continue to fuel downside risk that will affect affect banks and corporations. Slow growth in China will be another key driver for global concern, as nations grapple with lowering debt stock while simultaneously growing their ailing gross domestic products, he said. Wilson said the window for addressing credit challenges…
Author: The Editor
SMEs that sets out to stand out from the competition – as opposed to merely trying to outdo its competitors – have better chances of survival. Businesswomen have special challenges seldom faced by men Doubts the likelihood of business existence today without Stanbic Anakazi’s assistance Business stats reveal that over 50% of micro to small businesses locally are managed by women. Despite this skew, 40% of these women have little or no access to formal financial services. This has stifled their ability to grow investments and propel their enterprises to success and competitiveness. Their financial exclusion has also limiting the…
Global fashion and apparel industry to grow to $5trillion in the next decade Africa needs to rapidly industrialize to boost its textile and apparel manufacturing capacity The fashion industry globally is a multi – billion dollar industry said to be worth $2.4trillion while Africa’s share is $30.1billion. This was established at the recently held the Gauteng Tourism Authority held ‘Fashionomics Africa’ event to showcase Africa’s finest fashion designs at the inaugural Africa Investment Forum in Sandton, Johannesburg. Delegates and Executives at the event could not resist but ditch the board rooms, where traditional deal making takes place, to view the…
The Kwacha in Africa’s copper producer, Zambia, closed slightly bullish, a few points shy of K12/USD. The local unit had breached the psychological 12 level to close Tuesday at K12.1/USD. Mining tax conversions to fund local currency statutory obligations gave the Kwacha support, settling at K11.87/USD in previous session. We expect the unit to hold within a K11.75/USD-K11.85/USD band in the week.
• 2018/19 season, has an anticipated modest uptick of 2.4% to 430,000 tonnes growing to 463,0000 tons by end of 2021/22. • $60mn Mansa sugar production expected to ramp domestic production in Q4:18. Lusaka Securities Exchange – LuSE listed Zambia Sugar is forecast to see limited growth on the export market, BMI Research said. The researcher believes that Zamsugar, the country’s main exporter, will see only moderate growth in sugar sales over the next five years for two reasons. Firstly, Zambia is projected to be the third largest sugar producer among its neighbouring countries, with Zimbabwe and Mozambique first and…
What are the main developments affecting oil and gas in Africa? Three themes are coming through, aside from business- as-usual challenges that all companies face in Africa: Substantial FIDs in Africa: In southern/ east coast Africa FIDs of approximately 70-80 US$billion will be taken over the next 12 months. These will be followed by other large-scale projects, including the refinery development in Uganda, storage facilities, domestic gas developments in Mozambique (fertilizer, gas to liquids), etc. Legislation and regulatory certainty: It is important that governments are able to respond to changing dynamics in the global oil & gas market to remain…
Crude futures recorded the steepest one day slide since Sept. 2015 as markets priced in US Donald Trump’s tweets that oil should be at levels trading lower than current. Supply side economics are such that the United States (US) has increased its output while the equity markets are signalling weakness in global growth. These factors totally offset the endeavours by OPEC nation Saudi Arabia to cut supply by 500,000bpd in December to provide support to crude prices. U.S. crude futures (CLc1) settled down $4.24bbl, or 7.1%, to $55.69bbl. It was the largest one-day percentage decline for the contract since September 2015.…
Assures eurobond holders and bilateral debt providers that their money is safe in Zambia. Re-iterated need for accountability in public finance management. Admittance of debt burden and measures to reign in the obligation to restore the nation to fiscal fitness. The drive towards ensuring increased operational efficiency through listing of SOEs. Head of State in Africa’s second largest copper producer Zambia, His Excellency Mr. Edgar Lungu opened the World Bank IDA -18 meeting in Livingstone on 13 Nov. This meeting comes barely a few days after an article 4 mission team visit by the Washington based lender IMF team that…
As the festivities draw nigh, spend by retailers has fueled dollar demand outstripping supply, thereby pushing the kwacha to ZMW12.03/USD for a unit of dollar. This move represents a 2.29% loss from start of week levels of ZMW11.65/USD. Most retailers are gearing up stock in readiness for the Christmas season as such have to pay for imports in dollar. With the mineral royalty tax window opening on the 15 Nov. it is expected that the local unit will have some support from dollar conversions to kwacha to meet taxation obligation. Demand side fundamentals are expected to exceed the supply side…
Toyota Kenya and other African subsidiaries of its parent firm Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC) will be making vehicle purchase orders directly from the factory without going through sales and marketing representatives of automaker Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC). The move is aimed at increasing efficiency and competitiveness of the vehicle dealerships in the continent. TTC is the distributor of TMC’s vehicles in various African countries including Kenya where it owns Toyota Kenya Limited. “On June 1, 2018, the group and TMC entered into a memorandum of understanding regarding a transfer of TMC’s entire sales and marketing operations in the African market…