Story of the Day:
Chief Executive Officer at Zambia’s only timber growing and processing listed company has resigned after 16 months of holding both executive and board positions, according to a statement from ZAFFICO. Read more
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President Hakainde Hichilema, on Friday, chaired his first (Special) Cabinet Meeting at State House to deliberate on the Budget Policy Concept Paper on the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the 2022 National Budget. During the Meeting, Cabinet approved the Concept Paper which gives the strategic policy direction, macro-economic and fiscal objectives as well as targets for the 2022-2024 MTEF and the 2022 National Budget. Read more: Lusaka Times
ABSA Bank Zambia has announced a twenty one percent salary increment across the board for its workers effective April 2021. ABSA Bank Managing Director Mizinga Melu says the increment translates to each employee getting an increment of two thousand five hundred kwacha. Ms Melu says all employees will get twelve thousand five hundred kwacha discretionary one off payment. Read more: ZNBC
Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) will re-align its priorities to respond to the policies and aspirations to those of the new dawn administration. ZDA director general Mukula Makasa says top on the agency’s agenda is decentralising its services to all the 10 provinces. Read more: Zambia Daily Mail
One positive externality of the recent Kwacha bond rally euphoria, is that the yield curve has significantly flattened over the last one month and credit markets are already pricing in lower cost of lending. The government securities (bond) curve has climbed down by an average of 825 basis points (bps) across the fixed income spectrum. Read more: The Business Telegraph
International Business and Finance
The World Bank Group has announced that it was discontinuing the publication of the annual ‘Doing Business report’ after data regularities were discovered in its Doing Business 2018 and 2020 reports. Read more: Business Insider
U.S. stock futures were lower in early morning trading Monday after the Dow Jones Industrial Average turned in three straight weeks of losses for the first time since September 2020. Futures on the Dow shed around 440 points. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures also both traded in negative territory. Read more: CNBC
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says failure to raise the U.S. debt limit could lead to the unthinkable: a default on government payment obligations. That’s an outcome the White House on Friday warned could plunge the economy into recession. Read more: Reuters
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a face-to-face meeting will challenge Amazon founder Jeff Bezos over his company’s tax record, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Read more: Reuters
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In 11 trades recorded on Friday, 246,939 shares were transacted resulting in a turnover of K374,941 A share price gain of K0.10 was recorded in Zambia Sugar. Trading activity was also recorded in British American Tobacco Zambia, Standard Chartered Zambia, Zambeef and CEC Africa on the quoted tier. The LuSE All Share Index (LASI) closed at 4,746.58 points, 0.15% up from the previous close of 4,739.33 points.
Chart of the Day: