Story of the Day:
Sovereign wealth funds are not a recent economic phenomena. They were first synthesized in the 1950s as a way of saving up excess cash generated in rich commodity economies. The first-ever sovereign wealth fund was the Qatar fund formed in 1953. At the time of its formation, the Qatar fund was to be a special purpose vehicle to manage excess liquidity from the discovery of the ‘black gold’. Read more
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Despite negative pressure in revenue collection caused by COVID-19, Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has exceeded its target by over K10 billion by collecting over K45 billion in the last six months from the projected K30 billion. Read more: Zambia Daily Mail
Five female entrepreneurs in the technology space were yesterday empowered with US$10,000 each as seed funding to grow their businesses using technology. The seed funding under the Standard Chartered Bank Women in Tech (WiT) programme and in partnership with BongoHive saw five women-led businesses emerge winners in the competition. Read more: Zambia Daily Mail
About 145 Travel Agents have been trained to market Zambia’s tourism sector in South America by Brazil’s Premier Tourismo Club, in partnership with Africa Nova and Mailnews Tourismo. Zambia’s Ambassador to Brazil, Alfreda Mwamba says the training will build capacity among the Travel Agents on Zambia’s tourism sector and enable them to easily sell Zambia as the best tourist destination in Africa. Read more: ZNBC
Government has set aside $10 million for procurement of monitoring equipment to improve mobile service provision in the country. Ministry of Transport and Communications Permanent Secretary Misheck Lungu says the monitoring equipment to be managed by sector will help in penalizing mobile service providers who will be found wanting. Read more: ZNBC
The Zambia Development Agency has invited the private sector to establish a modern mango processing project that falls under agro-processing subsector. ZDA says with a $5 million investment, the mango processing plant once established in the country will produce an average of 30,000 tonnes of mango pulp and 5,000 tonnes of dried mango per annum. Read more: Lusaka Times
International Business and Finance
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on Wednesday arrived at a deal after a nearly two-week standoff over its future oil production levels. The temporary but unprecedented gridlock that began in early July saw the United Arab Emirates reject a coordinated oil production plan for the group spearheaded by its kingpin, Saudi Arabia. Read more: CNBC
The European Central Bank is moving ahead with efforts to create a digital version of the euro as the use of cash declines and China ramps up tests of its own e-yuan. The central bank announced a two-year investigation on Wednesday that will examine “key issues regarding design and distribution” of a digital euro and analyze the potential market impact. A final decision on whether to roll out a digital euro would come later. Read more: CNN
Google was fined 500 million euros, or $593 million, by French antitrust authorities on Tuesday for failing to negotiate a deal in “good faith” with publishers to carry news on its platform, a victory for media companies that have been fighting to make up for a drop in advertising revenue that they attribute to the Silicon Valley giant. Read more: The New York Times
The Chinese economy’s sharp rebound from the coronavirus pandemic has now slowed, official figures show. Gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 7.9% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the same time last year. That was less than half the rate seen in the previous quarter and missed economists’ forecasts of 8.1% growth. Read more: BBC News
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In 32 trades recorded yesterday, 1,360,637 shares were transacted resulting in a turnover of K2,415,377. Share price losses were recorded price loss of K3.20 in Lafarge, and in Real Estate Investments Zambia of K0.15. Trading activity was also recorded in Madison Financial Services, PUMA, Standard Chartered Zambia, ZAMBEEF, ZAMEFA, Zanaco and ZAFFICO. The LuSE All Share index (LASI) closed at 4,638.75 points, 3.20% down from its previous 4,787.39 points, 1.10% down from its previous close of 4,835.80 points. The market closed on a capitalization of K60,447,619,707 including Shoprite Holdings and K26,202,978,933 excluding Shoprite Holdings.
Chart of the Day: