Story of the Day
First National Bank Zambia (FNB Zambia) has been conferred the Best SME Bank Zambia 2022 and Best Innovative Bank Zambia 2022 awards by the prestigious International Business Magazine. Read more
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Against the odds, the bond sale in Africa’s red metal hotspot Zambia was deeply undersubscribed with the Bank of Zambia raising only about K1.4 billion representing, just over half what the target auction size was. With eager anticipation of bailout from the International Monetary Fund, markets would expect soared interest in Kwacha assets which ideally was forecast. Read more: The Business Telegraph
One of the landmark developments in Africa’s copper producer Zambia, characterizing central banking reforms, is the recent enactment of law that shields governors and their deputies from being sacked with no valid reasons. Zambia’s head of state Hakainde Hichilema has signed into law a new legislation that will protect the Bank of Zambia governor and his deputies from being relieved of their duties without valid reasons. Read more: The Business Telegraph
Minister of Energy and Development in Zimbabwe Soda Zhemu has announced that the country has finalised its power import deals with Zambia and Mozambique. Zhemu also announced that they have retained their power import deal with South Africa. Both contracts were facing termination as the nation struggled to meet payments obligations to the two neighbours. Zimbabwe’s power import contracts with Mozambique’s Electricidade de Mocambique and Zambia’s ZESCO were set to expire at the end of July after ZESA Holdings indicated it was failing to pay the required $6.3 million. Read more: ESI Africa
Katete District Commissioner Malan Zimba has disclosed that works on the construction of the Katete Fruit Processing plant are progressing well and all works will be completed in the next one month. Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Zimba said the plant would be processing fruits such as mangoes, oranges, guavas, watermelons and tomatoes that will be used to produce tomato sauce among other fruits. Zimba explained that this would create direct employment for the farmers, as it will be an all year round project and the small-scale farmers will be able to buy irrigation materials which will enable them grow their crops all year round once they begin supplying their produce to the company throughout the year. Read more: Zambian Business Times
International Business and Finance
Zoom Video Communications Inc on Monday cut its annual profit and revenue forecasts as demand for the video-conferencing platform cools off from pandemic highs amid stiff competition from Microsoft Teams and Cisco WebEx. Shares of the pandemic darling fell 7% in extended trade after it reported its slowest quarterly revenue growth on record at 8%, as people switched to in-person meetings from virtual conversations. Read more: Reuters
The Federal Reserve is unlikely to tame inflation without pushing the American economy into a recession, according to a survey of economists released Monday. Seventy-two percent of economists polled by the National Association of Business Economics expect the next US recession will begin by the middle of next year — if it hasn’t already started. That gloomy finding includes nearly one in five (19%) who say the economy is already in a recession, as determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Another 20% of forecasters do not expect a recession to begin before the second half of next year. Read more: CNN
British consumer price inflation is set to peak at 18% — nine times the Bank of England’s target — in early 2023, an economist at US bank Citi said on Monday, raising his forecast once again in the light of the latest jump in energy prices. “The question now is what policy may do to offset the impact on both inflation and the real economy,” Benjamin Nabarro said in a note to clients. Consumer price inflation was last above 18% in 1976. Read more: CNN
Stock futures inched higher early morning Tuesday after stocks finished their worst day since June and Wall Street’s summer rally faded amid mounting rate hike concerns. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 25 points, or 0.08%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures slightly rose 0.05% and 0.12%, respectively. Read more: CNBC
Capital Markets Report
In 138 trades recorded yesterday, 21,642 shares were transacted resulting in a turnover of K43,038. Share price gains were recorded in Copperbelt Energy Corporation of K0.02 and in CEC Africa on the quoted tier of K0.01. Trading activity was also recorded in AECI, BATA, Investrust, CHIL, Standard Chartered Zambia, Zambia Breweries, ZCCM, Zambeef, ZAMEFA and Zanaco. The LuSE All Share Index (LASI) closed at 7,006.26 points, 0.11% up from its previous close of 6,998.79 points. The market closed on a capitalization of K71,428,663,725 including Shoprite Holdings and K36,645,978,285 excluding Shoprite Holdings.