Story of the Day:
Bata prioritized on NOOS “Never Out of Stock” collection, best sellers and volume lines which included school shoes, Gumboots, Tomy Takkies, NorthStar, Ladies and Men’s Bata. The company also changed its sourcing strategy to the regional (Africa) countries of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Read more
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China’s government is in the process of consulting internally about Zambia’s international debt restructuring, Secretary to the Treasury Felix Nkulukusa says. “I went to China myself with the minister of foreign affairs and China indicated they were coming on board and they are just making internal consultations,” Mr. Nkulukusa told Reuters, declining to give further details of the March trip. Read more: Lusaka Times
Zambia will start exporting an additional 80 MW of electricity to Namibia following an agreement signed by the utility companies of the two countries on Tuesday in Lusaka. Zambia’s Zesco Limited and Namibia’s Nampower signed a power supply agreement for the export of an additional 80 MW in addition to 100 MW being exported after the first agreement was signed in 2020. Read more: CGTN
Bank of Zambia (BoZ)’s treasury bills auction was on Thursday oversubscribed with bids amounting to over K3 billion against an offer of K2 billion. This means that there was demand for financial securities exceeding the total initial target that was offered.
Out of the K3 billion bids received, only K2 billion was allocated. Read more: Zambia Daily Mail
First National Bank (FNB) has witnessed significant growth of the CashPlus service in Zambia and across Africa, accumulating transactions valued at K1.2 billion in December 2021. The platform was launched in Zambia in 2018 and currently has over 1,500 CashPlus agents with over 273,000 monthly transactions. Read more: Zambia Daily Mail
Energy Minister Peter Kapala says government will remove all subsidies on fuel by the end of June. Recently, Finance and National Planning Minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane said government was already subsidising the price of fuel by removing some taxes and it could do more than that because it would negatively affect other sectors. Read more: News Diggers
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Nigerian regulators have given South African telecommunication giant, MTN the go-ahead to run a conventional commercial bank. MTN, which started operations in Nigeria in 2001, will now be able to offer services offered by commercial banks except granting credit and processing foreign exchange transactions. Read more: CGTN
The US inflation rate hit a fresh 40-year high in the year to March after fuel prices soared during the first full month of the Ukraine war. Consumer prices surged by 8.5% – the largest annual gain since December 1981 – following a double-digit rise in energy prices. Last month, President Joe Biden banned all imports of oil and gas from Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, US fuel prices reached new records. US energy prices rose by 32% in the year to March, according to the country’s Labor Department. Read more: BBC News
Sri Lanka has said it will temporarily default on its foreign debts amid its worst economic crisis in over 70 years. Officials said the impact of the pandemic and the Ukraine war made it “impossible” to pay its creditors. The South Asian country has seen mass protests as it suffers food shortages, soaring prices and power cuts. It is due to start talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next week on a loan programme to get its economy back on track. Read more: BBC News
Boeing is likely to lose about 90 jet orders due to “geopolitical issues” related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the company said Tuesday. The aircraft maker said it is not canceling the orders — yet. But it has placed them in an accounting limbo which it uses when there are questions about whether jet orders on its books are likely to be completed. Read more: CNN
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In 86 trades recorded yesterday, 1,433,410 shares were transacted resulting in a turnover of K1,769,194. Share price gains were recorded in Copperbelt Energy Corporation of K0.01, in Zanaco of K0.02 and in CEC Africa on the quoted tier of K0.03. Share price losses were recorded in Real Estate Investmetns Zambia of K0.10 and in Zambeef of K0.02. Trading activity was also recorded in First Quantum Minerals Zambia, Chilanga Cement, Zambia Breweries and Zambia Sugar. The LuSE All Share Index (LASI) closed at 6,965.89 points, 0.11% up from its previous close of 6,958.22 points. The market closed on a capitalization of K71,137,088,225 including Shoprite Holdings and K36,354,402,785 excluding Shoprite Holdings.