Story of the Day:
Private sector activity in Zambia tumbled in June as the global coronavirus pandemic hammered consumer demand and forced businesses to reduce their operations and staffing levels, although there were signs that the worst of the downturn may have passed. Output, new orders, and employment all continued to decrease sharply, but at softer rates than in May. Meanwhile, input costs fell again, enabling firms to lower their selling prices to help stimulate demand. Read more
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The Zambia Statistics Agency – Zamstats has disclosed that the rebasing of Zambia’s Gross Domestic Product – GDP is still on the table as the Agency and other stakeholders are currently working on sourcing more funds to enable the agency undertake an integrated GDP rebasing approach. Read more: Zambian Business Times
Dollar bonds for Africa’s second largest copper producer rallied close to 91 basis points on average in the 2022 and 2024 over the last 5 days. Zambia’s dollar bonds got a boost from deliberations with the Washington based lender IMF who were in virtual talks with the copper producers Ministry of Finance from 22 June to 10 July. Read more: The Business Telegraph
The World Bank Assessment Report on Debt Transparency among International Development Associations (IDA) countries has exposed Zambia’s lack of transparency on debt reporting. Read more: News Diggers
Northwestern province Permanent Secretary Willies Mangimela has called on investors to take advantage of the favourable business environment created by government and invest in the region. Mr. Mangimela said government is in a hurry to change the economic landscape and requires the participation of both public and private stakeholders. Read more: ZNBC
Vice President Inonge Wina has reaffirmed government’s commitment to ensuring that developmental projects are taken to all parts of the country without segregation. The Vice President however said it is regrettable that there have been some delays in the execution of some projects as a result of inadequate budgetary allocation to cater for all projects at once. Read more: ZNBC
The Emerald and Semi-precious Stones Association of Zambia has called on Government to consider waiving area charges for gemstone mining to help the sector negotiate through the coronavirus hurdles. Read more: Zambia Daily Mail
International Business and Finance
After almost five days of fraught discussions, European Union leaders have agreed on a 750 billion euro (almost $858 billion) stimulus plan to help fund Europe’s recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Read more: CNN
UBS announced a net profit of $1.23 billion for the second quarter of 2020, down 11% from the same period last year ($1.4 billion) as the coronavirus pandemic weighed on earnings. Analysts polled by the bank had expected a net profit of $973 million for the quarter. Read more: CNBC
The UK economy has “clawed back” about half the fall in output it saw during the peak of the coronavirus lockdown in March and April, according to the Bank of England’s chief economist. Read more: BBC News
IBM shares jumped about 6% in after-hours trading Monday after a second-quarter earnings report that was not quite as painful as Wall Street had feared, despite disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The company reported earnings of $2.18 per share — down 31% from the same period in the prior year — on $18.1 billion in revenue during the three months ended June 30. Read more: Yahoo Finance
Nigeria’s central bank held its benchmark lending rate at 12.5%, the central bank governor said on Monday. Read more: Reuters
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There were no trades recorded yesterday. The LuSE All Share Index (LASI) maintained its close at 3,879.36 points, as there were no share price movements. The market closed on a capitalization of K55,705,967,232 including Shoprite Holdings and K21,466,761,252 excluding Shoprite Holdings.
Chart of the Day: