Story of the Day
Zambia’s current 2009 Public Private Partnership Act has a provision for accommodating unsolicited proposals (also known as USPs) from the private sector. A USP arises when a private-sector consortium proposes a PPP rather than responding to a public-sector request for proposals. Executed well, USPs provide Governments with the ability to tap into private sector innovation and efficiencies. However, USPs do have an inherent challenge win it comes to dealing with competition during the procurement process. According to the World bank caution on USPs, “like unsolicited advice, in some cases unsolicited proposals do genuinely help governments respond to an infrastructure challenge in an innovative and more efficient manner. But many USPs have created challenges related to transparency, governance, and lack of competition—particularly in developing countries”. Read more
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The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Lusaka City has increased to K80 billion following the booming of key businesses such as wholesale and retail trade. This is as opposed to the K49 billion recorded in 2016. According to the Lusaka City GDP Report released by the Zambia Statistics Agency (ZAMSTATS) today, the capital city now accounts for a quarter of the country’s national GDP. Read more: ZNBC
Finance and National Planning Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane has dissolved the Board of the National Road Fund Agency -NRFA. Dr. Musokotwane says the dissolution is because of the Board’s failure to pull together as a united team. He says this has affected the NRFA’s ability to execute its mandate and attend to tasks assigned to it. Read more: ZNBC
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Monday said she hoped debt restructuring efforts for Zambia and Chad could be completed by the end of the year, which would pave the way for more countries to seek help. Georgieva, speaking with civil society groups at the start of the annual IMF and World Bank meetings, said a Group of 20 initiative launched in late 2020 had been slow to become operational, but she was upbeat about the cases of Chad and Zambia, who together with Ethiopia were the first to request help. Read more: MSN
Minister of Technology and Science Felix Mutati says the 2022 ZICTA annual market report shows that the number of active mobile money subscribers increased to 9.9 million in 2021, while transactions grew to K169.4 billion. Read more: News Diggers
Bank of Zambia Governor Dr Denny Kalyalya says ensuring his office has security of tenure is a progressive move as it guarantees freedom in the execution of his duties. President Hakainde Hichilema recently signed into law new legislation that will protect the Central Bank Governor and his deputies from being fired without valid reasons. Read more: News Diggers
The Tobacco Association of Zambia – TAZ has revealed that it members expect Virginia tobacco exports of approximately $92 million p and Burly Tobacco exports of approximately $6 million (combined about $100 million) to be earned by its member farmers as export revenues. TAZ General Manager Adam Gordon said Virginia tobacco production increased while Burly tobacco production remained flat between 2020/2021 to 2021/2022 farming season. Zambia exports over 90% of all its tobacco production. Read more: Zambian Business Times
Even as power utility ZESCO proposes to increase electricity connection fees among other proposed increaments in tariffs, it’s worrying to note that 70% of Zambia’s household are currently not connected to the electricity national grid. According to the revelation by the Energy Regulation Board, the official number of households connected to the national grid as at 30th June, 2022 was about 1.2 million. When ZBT compared this 1.2 million households connected to the grid to a total of about 3.5 million households for the entire country using the official Zamstats average family size of 5.5 people and a national projected population of about 19 million people, this confirms that only about 30% of households in Zambia are connected to the electricity national grid. Readmore: Zambian Business Times
International Business and Finance
The Federal Reserve’s fight to squash inflation will cause the US economy to start losing tens of thousands of jobs a month beginning early next year, Bank of America warns. Although the jobs market remained surprisingly strong in September, the Fed is working hard to change that by aggressively raising interest rates to ease demand for everything from cars and homes to appliances. As pressure from the Fed’s war on inflation builds, nonfarm payrolls will begin shrinking early next year, translating to a loss of about 175,000 jobs a month during the first quarter, the bank said. Charts published by Bank of America suggest job losses will continue through much of 2023. Read more: CNN
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Monday warned that a “very, very serious” mix of headwinds was likely to tip both the U.S. and global economy into recession by the middle of next year. Dimon, chief executive of the largest bank in the U.S., said the U.S. economy was “actually still doing well” at present and consumers were likely to be in better shape compared with the 2008 global financial crisis. Read more: CNBC
The UK unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in nearly 50 years, latest official figures show. The jobless rate fell to 3.5% in the three months to August, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the lowest since early 1974 However, the squeeze on pay remains, with rises in regular wages failing to keep up with the rising cost of living. When taking the rise in prices into account, the value of regular pay fell by 2.9%, the ONS said. Read more: BBC News
The Bank of England has been forced to step in for a second day running to boost its emergency bond-buying scheme. The emergency move came as it warned a sell-off of government bonds was a “material risk” to financial stability. The Bank said it would buy a wider range of bonds to help “restore orderly market conditions”. Read more: BBC News
The mining sector in Tanzania is on a growth trajectory and is set to be a significant contributor to the Tanzanian economy. The contribution of the Tanzanian mining sector to the country’s GDP grew by 2.5% from 2018 to 2021, jumping to 7.3% from 4.8%, inching closer to government projections. Read more: Business Insider
Capital Markets Report
In 80 trades recorded yesterday, 44,305 shares were transacted resulting in a turnover of K291,582. Share price losses were recorded in CEC Africa on the quoted tier, Zambeef and Zanaco of K0.01, K0.01 and K0.01 respectively. Trading activity was also recorded in BATA, British American Tobacco Zambia, Copperbelt Energy Corporation, Chilanga Cement, Standard Chartered Zambia, and ZAFFICO. The LuSE All Share Index (LASI) closed at 7,225.30 points, 0.06% down from its previous close of 7,229.31 points. The market closed on a capitalization of K72,382,114,245 including Shoprite Holdings and K37,599,428,805 excluding Shoprite Holdings.