Africa Business News

South Africa’s rand weakened slightly early on Thursday, pausing an advance in the previous session that saw the currency trade at its firmest in three days.
At 0600 GMT, the rand was 0.07% weaker. With lending rates still relatively high in South Africa, the rand and local bonds have seen inflows from investors ditching safe-havens. But analysts have said these may offer only short-term relief.

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South African coal company, Exxaro Resources, has reported a 40% jump in core earnings due to higher coal exports and a favourable exchange rate offsetting one-off items.
Exxaro said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, for the six months to June 30, rose 40% to 3.929 billion rand. It was boosted by higher commercial coal revenue offsetting higher costs.
The company said higher coal revenue was mainly driven by increased volumes of sales to power utility Eskom and a 39% rise in export volumes during the half-year.
The coal miner was deemed an essential service during South Africa’s lockdown, which lasted from late March to the end of May.

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South Africa’s total mining output fell 28.2% year-on-year in June compared to a revised contraction of 27.6% in May. This is according to data released on Thursday by Statistics South Africa.
Year-on-year output percentage changes showed gold fell to 17% from 21.8% in May 2019.

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Nigeria's Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, has urged the Corporate Affairs Commission to ensure new regulations from the Companies and Allied Matters Bill, 2020, does not hamper efforts to support micro, small and medium sized enterprises.
The minister made the call against the backdrop of efforts by the commission to unveil new regulations for business registration processes following President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent assent to the amended legislation.
Speaking when he received the Chairman of CAC, Mr. Ademola Seriki, Adebayo noted that government is currently trying to help SMEs grow by removing all impediments in the sector. He said consideration should be given to them as regards issuance of fees.

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The total assets of the banking sector rose to 47.82 trillion naira as of the end of June. A member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr Rafindadi Sanusi, disclosed this at the committee's meeting on Wednesday.
Dr. Sanusi said the report on the banking system stability review showed that despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 lockdown, the banking system remained sound and resilient.
According to him, non-performing loans ratio declined to 6.4 per cent in June 2020 from 6.6 per cent in April 2020 and 9.36 per cent in the corresponding period of 2019. The MPC member said total gross credit increased by 3.33 trillion naira between May 2019 and June 2020 following the introduction of the Loan to Deposit Ratio policy.
He said most of the increase in credit was extended to manufacturing, consumer credit, general commerce, ICT and agriculture.

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The volume of petrol imported into Nigeria in May fell by 72.65 per cent. This is according to the latest data obtained from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
From a high of 2.25 billion litres in March this year, the volume of petrol imported into the country through the Direct Sale Direct Purchase scheme fell to 1.81 billion litres in April and 495.10 million litres in May.
Under the DSDP scheme, selected overseas refiners, trading companies and indigenous companies are allocated crude supplies in exchange for the delivery of an equal value of petrol and other refined products to the NNPC.
The NNPC data showed that the average daily supply of the product stood at 15.97 million litres in May, down from 60.43 million litres in April and 72.59 million litres in March.

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The Debt Management Office says Nigeria will auction 150 billion naira's worth of bonds by subscription on August 19.
The DMO said the breakdown of the figure includes a 25 billion naira 10-year reopening bond that would mature in January 2026. It will be offered at 12.5 per cent. The breakdown also included a 40 billion naira 15-year reopening bond that would mature in March 2035. It will be offered at 12.5 per cent.
It also showed a 45 billion naira 25-year reopening bond that would mature in July 2045. This will be offered at 9.8 per cent. The longest tenor of a 40 billion niara 30-year reopening bond will be offered at 12.98.
According to the DMO, the settlement date for the bonds is August 21, 2020.
The Federal Government’s bonds worth N130bn, which were auctioned in July, were oversubscribed by N340.13bn.

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The National Bank of the Republic of Belarus left its refinancing rate unchanged at a record low of 7.75 percent on August 22nd 2020. Policymakers said that they hold an additional meeting to discuss the rate on October 14th. In June, the annual inflation rate was at 5.2%, the same as in June as food prices slowed while cost of non-food goods rose further. The overnight credit rate and the overnight deposit rate were also left unchanged at 8.75 percent and 6.75 percent, respectively.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Afrolit Podcast: Hosted by Ekua PM, Afrolit shares the stories of multi-faceted Africans one episode at a time. https://open.spotify.com/show/2nJxiiYRyfMQlDEXXpzlZS?si=mmgODX3NQ-yfQvR0JRH-WA

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Oil prices moved higher on Wednesday after an industry report showed that U.S. inventories of crude fell more than analysts expected, bolstering hopes that fuel demand in the world’s biggest economy can weather the coronavirus pandemic.
Brent crude LCOc1 was up 52 cents, or 1.2%, at $45.02 a barrel by 0648 GMT, after falling around 1% on Tuesday.
West Texas Intermediate CLc1 oil was up 49 cents, or 1.2%, at $42.10 a barrel, having dropped 0.8% in the previous session.
The American Petroleum Institute [API] said on Tuesday that crude stocks fell by 4 million barrels last week, more than analysts’ expectations of draw of 2.9 million barrels. Official government data is due later on Wednesday.

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This episode is sponsored by
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The UK economy suffered its biggest slump on record between April and June as coronavirus lockdown measures pushed the country officially into recession.
The economy shrank 20.4% compared with the first three months of the year.
Household spending plunged as shops were ordered to close, while factory and construction output also fell.
This pushed the UK into its first technical recession defined as two consecutive quarters of economic decline since 2009.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak told the BBC that the government was grappling with something that is unprecedented and that it was "a very difficult and uncertain time.
chancellor Anneliese Dodds however blames Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the scale of the economic decline, saying a downturn was inevitable after lockdown but Johnson's jobs crisis wasn't.

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This episode is sponsored by
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