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Zambia to Pay 1% Interest After ‘Mission Impossible’ Debt Deal
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US Business activity slows in June, PMI indicates
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Standard Chartered gives women businesses $50,000
Story of the Day
The Zambia Association of Manufacturers (ZAM) will be hosting its annual sustainability walk on 24th June 2023 starting and ending at East Park Mall under the theme “Taking Green Steps for a Sustainable Future”. The event will be graced by Her Honour Mrs Mutale W.K Nalumango – The Vice President of the Republic of Zambia. Sustainability in all sectors of the economy has become one of the fastest-growing concerns considering the adverse effects the earth has been experiencing due to global warming and scarcity of natural resources. Additionally, regulatory pressures have had an impact on advancing and promoting Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) matters. In response to joining the rest of the world in promoting and advancing sustainability and a green economy, the Zambia Association of Manufacturers annually holds a sustainability walk to inspire and empower participants to take action towards a sustainable future by bringing together people from diverse backgrounds. The Walk aims to: Read more
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Zambia will pay interest rates of as low as 1% until 2037 as part of its debt restructuring deal secured with nations including China this week, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The southern African country will push out maturities on $6.3 billion in bilateral debt to 2043, representing an average extension of more than 12 years. Rates will increase to a maximum 2.5% after 14 years under the baseline scenario, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details weren’t public. Zambia was paying an average of 3.9% on its Chinese bilateral loans, according to estimates by Debt Justice, a UK organization that campaigns for loan cancellation for poor nations. Read more: Yahoo Finance
World Bank Group (WB) president, Ajay Banga, says the debt treatment agreement agreed by Zambia’s official creditors Committee will help unlock private sector investment, restore growth and accelerate job creation in the country. Banga said an agreement, which was consistent with the Joint WB-International Monetary Fund (IMF) Debt Sustainability Framework, represented a critical milestone toward restoring debt sustainability in Zambia. “The World Bank Group welcomes the agreement by the Official Creditors’ Committee under the G20 Common Framework on the key parameters of the debt relief for Zambia. “This decision and final completion of the agreement will help unlock private sector investment, restore growth and accelerate job creation in Zambia,” he said in a statement on Friday. Read more: Zambia Monitor
ZANACO Chief Risk Officer, Mutisunge Zulu anticipates that the country’s economy will grow by more than 7 percent following a debt restructuring deal. Mr. Zulu says the debt restructuring will enable the government to rearrange resources and have adequate reserves to be able to fund various sectors. Speaking in an interview with ZNBC News, Mr Zulu explains that the deal will further contribute to economic growth through job creation and increase in tax revenue collection. Read more: ZNBC
A series of workshops and sensitization activities tailored for the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) sector across the country to promoting voluntary tax compliance has been set up by the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA). The workshops will serve as platforms for exchanging valuable knowledge, addressing concerns, and equipping artisanal and small-scale miners with the necessary information to ensure compliance with tax regulations. This is according to the ZRA Commissioner General, Dingani Banda, at the ZRA/artisanal and small-scale miners’ workshop recently in Lusaka. Read more: Zambia Monitor
Bank of Zambia Exchange Rates
Currency | Buying | Selling |
---|---|---|
USD | 17.0208 | 17.0708 |
GBP | 21.6386 | 21.7090 |
EUR | 18.5323 | 18.5936 |
ZAR | 0.9120 | 0.915 |
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U.S. business activity fell to a three-month low in June as services growth eased for the first time this year and the contraction in the manufacturing sector deepened, closely watched survey data out Friday showed. The overall picture, though, indicated U.S. economic growth ticked up a notch in the second quarter even as worries persist that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate increases over the past year will trigger a recession. S&P Global said its flash U.S. Composite PMI Output Index, which tracks the manufacturing and services sectors, fell to a reading of 53.0 this month, the lowest since March. Nonetheless, it was the fifth straight month that the PMI remained above 50, indicating growth in the private sector. Read more: Reuters
Britain’s economy showed signs of a slowdown this month but inflation pressures stayed high, according to a survey published a day after the Bank of England raised interest rates sharply and said it was ready to do more to tame price growth. S&P Global’s Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) – covering businesses in the services and manufacturing sectors – dropped to a three-month low of 52.8 in June, a preliminary reading showed on Friday, down from 54.0 in May and hit by the weakest growth in new orders since January as factories suffered. Read more: Reuters
The World Bank said it had approved on Friday a $700 million operation for Mexico to promote public policies to create economic opportunities and expand social security for women. The operation is set to help close gender gaps, provide access to better jobs, improve safety on public transport and systems to prevent gender-based violence, an urgent issue in a country where on average some 20 women are killed every day. The project also looks to expand social security coverage to cover all domestic workers – who are mostly women – to protect them against economic blows. Some 72% of domestic workers in Mexico do not receive any sort of work benefits, according to the country’s statistics agency. Read more: Yahoo Finance
Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) and TotalEnergies have signed an $11 billion contract to start building a new petrochemicals complex in Saudi Arabia, the two companies said in a joint statement on Saturday. “Aramco and TotalEnergies today awarded Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts for the $11 billion “Amiral” complex, a future world-scale petrochemicals facility expansion at the SATORP refinery in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the statement read. Read more: Reuters
The International Monetary Fund’s board of directors has authorized the immediate delivery of around $120 million to Uganda, while warning of higher risks, particularly the recent consequences from the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act. The funds were made available through the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement, which provides medium-term financial assistance to low-income countries with long-term balance-of-payments problems, such as Uganda, in order to implement economic programs that make significant progress toward a stable and sustainable macroeconomic position consistent with strong and sustainable poverty reduction and growth. Read more: Business Insider
The President of Kenya has come to the Paris climate summit “not to ask for help” from the rich countries, but to ensure that a reform of the global financial architecture enables developing countries to “take part in the solution,” he said on Thursday. “The current financial architecture is unfair, punitive and inequitable”, said William Ruto. “The countries of the South pay up to eight times more interest than developed countries because they are considered risky”, said the Kenyan president, who wants to attract private investment rather than development aid. “We are tired of this narrative” that portrays Africans as “victims of climate change”, “looking for favors” and “lamenting”, explains Mr. Ruto: “We are not asking for help, we want to be part of the solution”. Read more: Africa News
Standard Chartered Bank has announced the winners for Cohort three of the SC Women in Technology Incubator Programme (SC WIT). The Five women-owned businesses that emerged victorious in Cohort 3 are walking away with $50,000 seed funding after an intense and robust training programme, with each business getting $10,000. The SC WIT Incubator Programme is designed to identify, develop, and support women-led businesses in the technology sector. Through the incubator programme, participants receive training, mentorship, and access to resources to help them scale their businesses and drive innovation. Read more
In 47 trades recorded on Friday 28,310 shares were transacted reuslting in a turnover of K138,192.00. Trading activity was recorded in CEC Zambia, Zambeef and Zanaco. The LuSE All Share Index (LASI) maintainted its close at 8,236.96. The market closed on a capitalization of K76,785,651,359.06 including Shoprite Holdings and K42,002,965,919.06 excluding Shoprite Holdings.