Browsing: GDP

As the 16th president of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has inherited an economy grappling with record-high inflation, enduring unemployment, extreme poverty, crumbling infrastructure and high levels of insecurity. However, Nigeria’s debt situation is a sore thumb among these challenges.

Nigeria’s external debt stock stood at US$41.69 billion in 2022. Multilateral lenders accounted for almost half of this figure, with Eurobonds taking about 38 per cent of Nigeria’s external debt. China’s Exim Bank accounts for US$4.3 billion, or 86 per cent of the $5 billion in bilateral debt.…

• Kenya’s President William Ruto is urging Africa to shift from exports of raw materials to industrial processing of goods. He says African economies must change tact to revamp import/export trade.
• Comesa bloc has a combined GDP of $805 billion and a global export/import trade in goods worth $324 billion. 
• In a radical move, Dr Ruto calls for merging of Comesa, the East African Community, and the Southern African Development Community. 

Kenya’s President William Ruto is calling on the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) member-state to embrace industrial processing of to boost the value of exports and in turn enhance Africa’s share of global trade. 

In a radical shift that is also seeking to boost trade across Africa, Dr Ruto is also calling for the consolidation of trading blocs Comesa, the East African Community, and the Southern African Development Community.

Industrial processing to boost Africa trade

By joining …

The high-interest rates have made the United States dollar more appealing to investors who are piling into the greenback. The value of other currencies has tumbled: the pound, yuan, euro, and the yen. This depreciation in other currencies makes imports for these countries more expensive in United States dollars. The case for a recession caused by a strong dollar is grimmer in Africa where just about every country on the continent is overextended in terms of United States dollar-denominated borrowings.

Repaying loans in hard currency will be more expensive, especially where their currencies are rapidly depreciating.

The strong US dollar according to CNN has a destabilizing effect on Wall Street.

Companies listed on that bourse conduct business internationally, and a strong dollar will negatively impact their earnings. The second marker of the global economic recession is that US economy is slowing down or stalling. The world’s largest economy is driven …

• The economy is now projected to grow by 4.6% during 2022, a downward revision from the original 5.5% projection
• Reserve money stock has increased to ZW$33.6 billion as of June 30, 2022.
• Merchandise exports and imports increased by 33% and 15% to US$3 516.5 million and US$3 746.8 million. Exports are expected to reach US$7.3 billion
• The country is doing well in terms of budget transparency and is now ranked third in Africa, after South Africa and Benin.

Zimbabwe’s Finance and Economic Development Minister, Mthuli Ncube, presented the 2022 supplementary budget on Thursday amid skyrocketing inflation that has since eroded this year’s national budget.

This is the first time that Minister Ncube has presented a supplementary budget since he was appointed Finance Minister by President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2018.

The economy is now projected to grow by 4.6% during 2022, a downward revision from the original 5.5% projection, and follows …

• The telco sustained 190,273 direct and indirect jobs during the year
• Safaricom registered its first decline in full year profit in nine years, in the year ended March 2021
• The report seeks to illustrate how Safaricom is using a sustainable business model to address society’s needs

Safaricom’s latest sustainable business report indicates that the company created a total value of Sh664 billion for the Kenyan society in the 2020/2021 financial year, which is ten times greater than the profit made during the year.

According to the report’s ‘True Earnings’ highlights, the firm contributed Sh557.1 billion to the economy in the financial year, which is 5.2% of Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The independent analysis of Safaricom’s true value to society identifies the socio-economic and environmental impacts of the company and quantifies them in financial terms.

“Our Sustainable Business report, which covers our last fiscal year from 1st  April 2020 to …

Kenya’s agriculture sector grew by 5.1 percent in 2020, thereby preventing a contraction of the economy, amid the coronavirus pandemic, which ravaged a majority of other sectors.

Data from Deloitte’s East Africa Economies Report 2021 indicates that the sector remains fundamentally important to the Kenyan economy, contributing about 33 percent of the GDP and 56 percent of the employment, both formally and informally.

The report paints mixed performance in the sector in 2020, for instance, as of May 2020, Kenya’s Agricultural sector’s outlook was grim due to the locust swarm infestation affecting domestic agricultural production.

However, as of Q4 2020, the sector reflected a revamped outlook owing to favourable rains and success in beating back a second wave of desert locusts.

“As such, the sector is estimated to have posted a 5.1 percent growth in 2020, emerging as the silver lining sector,” the report says.

Exports

The report also shows …

 Economic prospects are predicting that 2021 will be a happier year for Pension Schemes. The devasting impact of Covid-19 had far reaching implications on the pension sector, especially in 2020 caused by several factors.

Also Read: Covid Economics: Kenya’s navigation of debt relief

• We had massive payouts, especially in the hospitality sector as companies closed down and retrenched. Pension scheme members made early access to pension benefits to cushion their financial well-being.
• A number of employers could not afford contributions funding to pension scheme and So they adapted to this challenge by obtaining a reprieve from the Retirement Benefits Authority to have temporal suspension of contributions deduction and remittance.
• The stock market also had a significant dip in valuations occasioned decline in earnings from a number of counters especially banking sector.
• In 2020 the GDP growth dropped to 1% growth compared to the projected growth of about 5%.

Despite the …

Morocco’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to fall by 6.3 per cent this year before recovering quickly and rebounding by 4.7 per cent in 2021 according to Morocco’s central bank, Bank Al-Maghrib. (https://kadence.in/)

According to Bank Al-Maghrib, like all countries around the world, the Moroccan economy has been affected by COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown measures put in place to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.

While continuing to monitor the economic and financial situation closely in the country and at the international level, the bank decided to maintain its key rate unchanged at 1.5 per cent.

As a result of higher volatile food prices, the Moroccan Consumer Price Index rose by 0.9 per cent in August after its stagnation in the second quarter and its slight year-on-year decline in July. (https://vivanteliving.com/)

The central bank also added that inflation is expected to continue evolving …