Africa Business News

The United States mission has begun contacting all immigrant visa applicants whose applications were affected by the travel restrictions under Presidential Proclamations 9645 and 9983 signed by former President Donald Trump in 2020.It is also prioritising the processing of such pending cases in Nigeria.Trump had suspended entry into the United States for certain nationals, including Nigeria, based on visa type.The US mission, in a statement, says its Consulate-General in Lagos had already contacted all immigrant visa applicants whose applications were affected and was prioritising the processing of such pending cases.It says the proclamation announcement applied only to certain immigrant visa cases and did not apply to tourist, business, student or other non-immigrant visas.

Zenith Bank held its 30th Annual General Meeting at the Civic Centre in the Victoria Island area of Lagos State.The meeting held in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic which crippled among other things, economic activities in 2020.The bank recorded a 5% increase in its gross earnings placing its result for the year ended December 31 2020 at ₦696.5 billion from ₦662.3 reported the previous year.The bank’s Chairman, Jim Ovia, says the result was achieved through the resilience of the brand as well as the ability of the bank to leverage the innate opportunities within the environment.

Officials in Equatorial Guinea have appealed for international help following a series of explosions that left at least 15 people dead and 500 injured.The cause of the blasts has been put down to an accident at a military base.President Teodoro Obiang Nguema says the explosions had been caused by the negligence of the team in charge of storing dynamite inside the military base.He says that the health services were quickly overwhelmed because of the extreme powerful explosions that flattened homes and tore the roofs off buildings.Videos from the scene showed injured people staggering through clouds of smoke to reach safety.

The NAFDAC-approved Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, around noon on Tuesday, via an Emirates airline.Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha says that Nigeria will receive its first tranche of about 4 million doses of the coronavirus vaccines.The Health Minister had noted that also noted that once the vaccines arrive in the country, about 70% of the population is expected to be inoculated within two years.

A top health official has warned that the spread of highly contagious coronavirus variants is threatening to fuel a potential fourth surge of cases in the US.The head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says she was concerned by recent Covid-19 data.Dr Rochelle Walensky says with variants spreading, they stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground gained.She says the variants are a very real threat to the people and the progress.The CDC has predicted the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant first found in the UK will become the dominant strain in the US this month.

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has relaxed lockdown restrictions in place since 5 January.He cited a decline in the number of cases, fatalities and hospitalisation.The curfew has been reduced and now runs from 22:00 to 05:00.Written permissions are no longer required for movement and intercity travel is now permitted.Businesses and markets can reopen, while schools and universities must prepare to reopen although no date was given.Funeral gatherings remain restricted to 30, while other gatherings including church meetings are limited to 50 people.According to the latest figures from the health ministry, Zimbabwe recorded 31 new cases and no deaths on Sunday.

Former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida says the security threats faced by Nigeria at this time, can be dealt with but requires long-term planning. He said quashing the threats posed by kidnappers, bandits, and the insurgents require a lot of planning, adding that it is not a short-term plan.General IBB says he has obtained information suggesting that security agencies are working together to map out new strategies on how to deal with the situation.The former president while stating that he is concerned about the situation in the country urged the government and the citizenry to join forces to overcome the problem.

SoftBank Group Corp shares closed at a record high on Tuesday, surpassing a peak reached at the height of the dot-com bubble, as online backers celebrated the recovery in the value of the firm’s tech portfolio.Shares in SoftBank, a heavily weighted component of the Nikkei 225 index which is trading at 30-year highs, closed up 4% at 10,420 yen, above the record 10,111 yen reached in February 2000.Underpinned by buybacks and with retail investors buying its shares and baseball-themed junk bonds, SoftBank’s shares have been supported by a growing number of portfolio companies listing in ebullient markets.

A Congressional Budget Office estimate released on Thursday showed that the United States will see its second-largest budget deficit since World War II this year, while the federal debt will continue to climb beyond GDP.The forecast by the nonpartisan office serving Congress came after the United States spent big in 2020 to keep its economy afloat as it battled the Covid-19 pandemic, sending its budget deficit to more than $3.1 trillion and the national debt to 100.1 percent of GDP.The forecast for the next 10 years does not take into account President Joe Biden’s proposal for a massive $1.9 trillion injection of stimulus into the world’s largest economy, which he argues is necessary both to tame the pandemic and get businesses and consumers back on their feet.CBO projects the deficit to hit just under $2.3 trillion this year, about $900 billion less than in 2020, while the national debt will rise to $22.5 trillion, or 102.3 percent of GDP.

The Senate has invited the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele to brief its committees on the opportunities and threats of cryptocurrency on the nation’s economy.The decision of the Senate to invite the CBN governor is sequel to a motion by a Federal Lawmaker Senator Istifanus Gyang during plenary on Thursday, on the CBN’s directive to stop financial institutions from transactions in cryptocurrencies and matters arising from them.Federal lawmakers called for caution pointing out that while cryptocurrency has its negative sides and it has become the fastest-growing form of transaction all over the world.They argued that technology has changed the way business is conducted in Nigeria and the country cannot run away from cryptocurrency adding that regulation was needed.