Browsing: South Africa

Tanzania has set regional precedence by establishing an Atomic Energy Commission and gone ahead to start construction of a state of the art laboratory designed manage use of radioactive materials.

In Sub-Sahara Africa, the country is only second to South Africa in this frontier and has already begun the first phase of construction works. Valued at 2.5bn/- the first phase of the lab construction begun last year and is designed to meet global operation and calibration standards in atomic energy and nuclear.

It may come as a surprise to you as it did to me to learn of this rather unsettling development; a third world country building an atomic management laboratory to rival world standards. Well, that is the case until you learn that this third world country is also gearing to start mining uranium.

This explanation is plausible, as we have been predisposed to this reality by Hollywood blockbuster …

At least 27 African states have so far been affected by the Covid-19 coronavirus with nearly 350 people diagnosed with the virus across the continent.

As the virus continues on its upward trajectory in Africa, concerted efforts are seeking to arrest its spread with support coming from different entities. The latest announcement of support is by Alibaba Founder Jack Ma who has pledged to donate medical supplies including masks, testing kits and medical use protective suits and face shields to all the 54 African countries.

In the statement posted on his Twitter account, Ma said that Africa can be one step ahead of the coronavirus which has already been classified a pandemic by the WHO.

Read: Coronavirus shakes economies, world forced to change perspective on Africa

Through his Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation, Ma has already donated medical supplies to other countries hardest hit by the virus, including Japan, …

South Africa, Africa’s second-largest economy is still experiencing power cuts off as the national power utility stated today on Thursday that, nation-wide power cuts across South Africa of up to 4,000 megawatts will last throughout the weekend and power kicking back on Sunday

According to information from a South African financial publication Moneyweb, the power cuts are due to the wait of regulatory approval to reconnect a unit at a nuclear power station in Cape Town (Koeberg).

Eskom, which produces more than 90 per cent of the electricity in Africa‘s most industrialized economy, ramped up power cuts to 4 000 MW on Tuesday after a fault with a pump at Koeberg, the country’s only nuclear station.

“Due to a shortage of generation capacity resulting from unplanned breakdowns, Eskom will continue implementing Stage 4 load-shedding until further notice. We expect that load-shedding, at various stages, may continue into the weekend,” Eskom …

Nigeria has just become the leading nation with the largest economy in Africa, after South Africa recent economic slump, when its economy contracted and sliding into a second recession in two years.

South Africa and Nigeria make up almost half of sub-Saharan Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

While South Africa statistics office highlighted bad news for the nation, suffering from power crisis, Nigeria statistician showed a rather positive performance of the economy, which grew at about 2.55 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2019.

This growth was the highest quarterly performance since the 2016 recession. It is argued that Nigeria’s economic growth was anchored on its oil exports with production levels remaining stable throughout 2019.

The South African economy shrank by 1.4 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2019, this followed a contraction of 0.8 per cent, which points to the fact that—the second-largest economy in Africa floated …

South Africa’s economy has reduced by 1.4 per cent in the fourth quarter, this is according to information from the South African statistician on Tuesday.

This scenario followed a contraction of 0.8 per cent in the third quarter, which means that the economy was in recession for the last half of 2019.

South Africa last entered a recession – when the GDP falls for two consecutive quarters – in the second quarter of 2018. This is South Africa’s third recession since 1994.

Further, the stats office highlighted that, for the whole of 2019, the South African economy grew by only 0.2 per cent (in real terms). In 2018, it saw growth of only 0.8 per cent, and yet it is the lowest reading since 2009 when the economy contracted by 1.5 per cent.

GDP shrank 0.5 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter after a 0.1 per cent expansion in …

Africa is one of the sunniest continents in the world, 85 percent of African land receives more than 2,000 kilowatt-hours of solar energy per square meter per year. Almost 70% of the population of African countries is located in the Sahara and the surrounding areas do not have access to the grid.

With the need to hook up to the grid, a new partnership is moving towards achieving more solar power for the industry. Kenyan industries are set to benefit by saving a minimum of 30% on their current cost grid consumption following a partnership between Distributed Power Africa (DPA) and Canadian Solar company. Currently, Kenyan companies lose nearly 10% of their production because of power outages and fluctuations.

The deal is expected to help DPA provide top tier PV panels from the company that is estimated to be over 60,000 KuMax and HiKu which would quite easily construct 50 …

AngloGold Ashanti, third-largest gold-miner in the world with operations in South Africa on Friday has reported a 72 per cent jump in annual earnings. AngloGold reported that it nearly doubled free cash flow in 2019 to $129 million.

The miner attributed the earnings surge to the higher gold prices and robust operational performance from its Kibali, Geita, Tropicana and Iduapriem mines.

According to the miner’s statement, AngloGold Ashanti headline earning per share measure in South Africa, went up to 91 cents on December 31, 2019, from the previous year, while free cash flow before capital expenditure on growth projects, rose 106 per cent to $448 million.

However, the gold-miner statement noted that: AngloGold Ashanti invested sustaining capital of $494million in 2019 and has forecast an increase to between $640 million and $670 million in 2020.

Also, the additional investment will help the company convert existing resources into additional ore reserves …

South African rand has taken a steady stance on Monday, after China intervened to soothe the virus tension and combat the outbreak economic backlash, via its rate cut approach, according to information from Reuters.

Reuters reported that, China’s central bank cut the interest rate on its medium-term lending on Monday as policymakers sought to cushion the drag on business from the outbreak that has immensely disrupted activity.

As of 0245 EAT, the rand was standing at 0.55 per cent firmer at 14.8966, adding to gains from Friday’s session spurred by largely positive reception of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation speech promising faster economic reformer.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported the rand slipped to 14.6570 per dollar on Monday 28 January, its weakest since Dec. 12, with the selloff largely driven by investors dumping emerging-market assets.

Further, the rand and other emerging market currencies had weakened amid investor fears …

South Africa has fallen to third place due to its constrained economic growth according to RMB’s “2020 Where to Invest in Africa” report.

But the country still holds its place as Africa’s bastion of a well-developed financial and capital market.
The report said the JSE remained Africa’s most liquid stock exchange with an excess of $1.4 billion traded daily. Which is much higher than Egypt’s Cairo Stock Exchange which trades $44 million a day.

According to RMB report, South Africa also ranked highly on other financial market depth measures such as private credit as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), showing that consumers have access to a wider range of financial instruments compared to other African countries.

The report showed, however, South Africa’s ease of doing business ranking in the last few years has slipped but it remains one of the top ten easiest operating environments in Africa.

Also

On Monday, the South Africa’s rand firmed back to below the key 15.00 per dollar mark, which is mostly on profit-taking and month-end positioning after a sustaining a steep slide triggered by the Wuhan coronavirus shaking the world, Reuters reveals.

At 0700 GMT the rand was 0.43 per cent firmer at 14.9650 per dollar, having ended at 15.0300 on Friday. The coronavirus dragged the currency to its weakest level in three months—traded at 14.4800 last Monday, which was 0.59 per cent lower than its New York Close on Friday, January 24.

Reuters reported that investors concerned about the spread of the coronavirus wiped more than $400 billion off the value of China’s stocks in the first trading session in two weeks after an extended Lunar New Year break as the death toll from the epidemic rose to 361.

READ:Coronavirus and the Implications for Emerging Markets

The rand has tumbled …