The Egyptian pound traded as weak as 5.9605 to the U.S. dollar on Thursday, its lowest level since January 2005. Bankers expect the currency to come under pressure in the coming days as foreign investors sell shares on the Egyptian stock exchange, which reopened yesterday after political unrest kept it closed for more than seven weeks.
The Bank of Agriculture (BoA) says it will soon embark on an aggressive loan recovery campaign. Managing Director Mohammed Santuraki made the announcement on Wednesday in Kaduna at a forum organised by the management to appraise the performance of the bank’s credit portfolio. He said the era of treating the bank’s credit facilities as government patronage was over, pointing out…
Nigerian crude oil grades hovered below two-and-a-half year highs on Wednesday, with traders adding that the initial rush to buy substitutes for lost Libyan exports is over. “I think the Libyan shortfall is now fully priced into Nigerian grades and I see no reason for any upside,” said an oil trader, with a focus in West Africa. Demand for Nigerian…
President Goodluck Jonathan has said that the launch of the gas project will result in a foreign direct investment of about $10 billion over the next three years. He also said when fully implemented, the entire gas master-plan agenda will result in $25 billion worth of investments in gas processing, transmission, and downstream gas utilisation projects, positioning the country as…
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sold $16.6 million in short-tenored foreign exchange forwards at its first such auction on Wednesday, at rates which indicated it expected the currency to remain stable or strengthen. The regulator began offering 1- 2- and 3-month forwards at its bi-weekly foreign exchange auctions on Wednesday as part of efforts to smooth dollar demand and help…
Profit taking activities by some investors have been attributed to the decline in market capitalisation, as witnessed yesterday at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). The NSE market capitalisation of the 194 First-Tier equities closed lower on Thursday at N8.009 trillion after opening the day at N8.077 trillion, reflecting 0.84 per cent decline or N68 billion losses. The market had gained…
I remember vividly when I was a manager in the strategy/account planning department of Centrespread FCB, an advertising agency. I had the onerous task of conducting consumer insights on lottery business operations for Lotto Nigeria. The agency developed some brand slogans ‘Levels fit change’ and ‘Level go change’. These slogans were tested across the key geographical regions in the country.…
Kenya expects overall spending in 2011/12 and its budget deficit to narrow from last year and for development expenditure to rise, its finance minister said on Wednesday. Overall spending is seen at 975.8 billion shillings in 2011/12, or 31.7 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), from a revised 883.9 billion shillings this year, equivalent to 32.7 per cent of…
Uganda's Central Bank plans to raise the minimum capital requirement for commercial banks by March 2013 to boost their ability to absorb shocks and put the country's financial system on a par with others in the region. Elliot Mwebya, the Central Bank's director of communications, said banks in East Africa's third largest economy would be required to increase capital bases…
The value of equities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday rebounded appreciably after negative performances. The NSE market capitalisation of the 194 First-Tier equities closed on Wednesday at N8.077 trillion, after opening the day at N7.983 trillion, reflecting 1.18 per cent or N94 billion gains. The market had last week plunged to N7.775 trillion due to low investors' confidence,…
Finance experts are undecided about the fate of Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting scheduled to be concluded today. The monetary policy rate is the process whereby the Central Bank controls the supply of money, often targeting a rate of interest for the primary purpose of promoting economic growth and stability. Yvonne Mhango, a…
The Nigerian Accounting Standards Board has waived the general loan loss provision for banks financial year, which ended 31 December, 2010. The board, in a statement on Monday, said this was due to the fact that banks’ have subjected their loan portfolios to extensive review since the beginning of the current Central Bank reforms to up to the end of…
The Federal Government at the weekend said it is committed to decongesting the nation’s ports by activating operations at the six Inland Container Depots (ICD) located in the country’s six geopolitical zones. Minister of transport, Yusuf Suleiman, who disclosed this during his inspection visit to Inland Container Nigeria Limited (ICNL), a subsidiary of Chrome Group, said his ministry would soon…
Prices of building materials have gone up by about 20 per cent in parts of Delta, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. A survey by the state’s ministry of economic planning indicated that a bag of Elephant and Dangote cement, which sold at N1,600 in Asaba, Ughelli, Warri, and Sapele in December 2010, now cost N1,900. The survey also…
Nigerian interbank lending rates eased to 9.25 per cent on average this week from 9.83 per cent last week, after the disbursal of part of monthly budgetary allocations to government agencies, traders said on Friday. The secured Open Buy Back closed flat at 8.50 per cent, 200 basis points above the Central Bank’s 6.50 per cent benchmark rate and 4.5…