South Africa’s rand fell early on Wednesday in line with weakness in other emerging market currencies, as increasing Sino-U.S. friction over China’s proposed security law for Hong Kong dented risk appetite.

At 0645 GMT, the rand traded at 17.4900 per U.S. dollar, 0.45% weaker than its previous close.

Nedbank analysts said emerging markets are trading marginally on the back foot as tensions between China and the U.S. remain elevated.

Headlines suggest the implementation of sanctions by the U.S. and the inevitable countermeasures that would follow.

Administrators for state-owned South African Airways (SAA) on Wednesday said the airline is not aiming to resume domestic flights from mid-June, rejecting a statement from the airline a day earlier.

SAA is under a form of bankruptcy protection and suspended all commercial passenger flights in late March, when the government imposed one of Africa’s strictest lockdowns.

SAA’s administrators, Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana, in a statement said the position around the cessation of flights remains as is until SAA has a better sense of what the level 3 lockdown means in terms of domestic air travel.

Matuson and Dongwana said they had not vetted Tuesday’s statement from the airline, adding that SAA’s future funding remained a key variable for any resumption of flights.

The Head of the Financial Intelligence Centre, Kwaku Duah, believes Ghana is in the position to correct and address all deficiencies that puts the country on the money laundering radar.

The European Commission on 7th May 2020 cited Ghana as one of four African countries listed by the European Union for money laundering breaches.

The decision puts financial transactions of Ghana under greater scrutiny.

The Ministry of Finance has however described the decision as unfortunate, saying Ghana was not engaged, and that the methodology used in arriving at that conclusion was flawed.

The Head of the Financial Intelligence Centre, Kwaku Duah, who agrees with the Finance Ministry’s reaction to the listing, told Citi Business News Ghana can meet its deadline to the Financial Action Taskforce by December.

He said the Financial Action Task Force, FATF, has identified some deficiencies in our Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime.

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) is demanding an independent public testing of random samples of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) from retail outlets supplied by the Ghana National Gas Company from its Atuabo Plant.

They are also calling on the company to declare the ratio of Propane to Butane in the LPG produced from Atuabo.

According to COPEC, this will put to rest the quality parameters and standard of liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and the observed high pressures from gas supplied by the Ghana National Gas Company.

In a statement issued by the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Executive Secretary, Mr. Duncan Amoah  insisted that based on complaints from consumers of LPG produced from Atuabo, they maintain that the Propane level in Atuabo LPG is unnecessarily higher than expected, and this has been partly blamed for some of the rampant fires the country has seen over the past years including domestic and retail outlet fires as adduced to by the LPG marketers on public record.

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria has cautioned Nigeria against taking loans from China.

The union stated this in a recent Sallah message jointly signed by the President, TUC, Quadri Olaleye, and the Secretary General, Musa-Lawal Ozigi.

The message said they wish that show that they are against getting loans from China. Some African countries have rejected their loan offers because of the conditions attached.

The TUC further called on the federal and other tiers of government to rise up to the task of rebuilding the economy especially after the damage done by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interest rates on loans to the Small and Medium Enterprises to cushion the effects of the coronavirus on their operations introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria will rise to nine per cent from five per cent in March 2021.

The CBN disclosed this in its guidelines for the implementation of the N50bn Targeted Credit Facility.

Part of the guidelines stated that interest rate under the intervention shall be five per cent per annum all-inclusive up to 28th February, 2021 and thereafter, the interest on the facility shall revert to nine per cent per annum (all inclusive) as from 1st March, 2021.

Banks have also been sensitising borrowers to the plan to increase the interest rates with effect from 2021.

The CBN introduced the N50bn credit as a stimulus package to support households and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CBN said the loan amount would be determined based on the activity, cash flow and industry/segment size of beneficiary, subject to a maximum of N25m for the SMEs; and households could access a maximum of N3m

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the price of petrol was above N130 per litre in 17 states in April, despite the reduction in the price of petrol to N125 per litre.

The pump price of petrol, which is still being regulated by the government, was reduced to N125 per litre from N145 per litre on March 18, 2020 following the sharp drop in global crude oil prices.

However, the NBS in its latest PMS report said the average price paid by consumers for a litre of petrol stood at N130.84 in April, down from N145.40 in March.

The average price of the product was as high as N140.57 per litre in Jigawa, Borno, and Taraba.

Other states where petrol was sold above N130 per litre were Bauchi, Sokoto, Yobe, Kaduna, Katsina, Gombe, Kano and Kogi.

The NBS said states with the lowest average price of petrol were Abuja, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Kwara, Oyo, Bayelsa and Enugu.

The International Monetary Fund has advised commercial banks to retain their earnings by suspending payment of shareholders’ dividends during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, made the call in an article entitled Halt bank dividends and buybacks now, which was posted on the organisation’s website.

Georgieva said retaining earnings through suspension of dividend payments would provide banks with enough capital to serve as a buffer against the adverse effects of the pandemic.

She said as the world braces itself for a deep recession in 2020, and only partial recovery in 2021, this resilience will be tested. Having in place strong capital and liquidity positions to support fresh credit will be essential.

she disclosed that the IMF staff calculated that the 30 global systemically important banks distributed about $250bn in dividends and share buybacks in 2019.

The Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) has extended the deadline for filing of Annual Tax Returns to June 30, 2020.

This according to the agency is in continuous effort to provide the much-needed relief to taxpayers and mitigate the economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a statement signed on Tuesday by LIRS Head of Corporate Communications, Monsurat Amasa , it said annual returns for individuals (both employees and self-employed persons) that were initially due on May 31st, 2020 can now be filed any time on or before the 30th of June, 2020.

LIRS, therefore, urged taxpayers to take advantage of the new extension to file their returns.

Taxpayers are also advised to access the LIRS eTax platforms for all tax administration matters, including filing of annual returns, generation of assessment and payment schedule and payment of the liabilities from the comfort of their homes and offices.

U.S. stock futures rose 2% on Tuesday and breached a major chart barrier as investors brushed aside China-U.S. trade tension and braced for a re-opening of the world economy.

S&P 500 E-Minis EScv1 rose 2% to 3,012 points, with 299,852 contracts changing hands. The S&P 500 index closed mostly unchanged​ on Friday at 2,955.45 points and the futures contract was up 1.9% from that close.​

The futures contract broke through 2,988.38, a 200-day simple moving average, suggesting a strong day ahead for U.S. stocks.