|
Tuesday 01st of November 2016 |
Morning Africa |
Register and its all Free.
If you are tracking the NSE Do it via RICHLIVE and use Mozilla Firefox as your Browser. 0930-1500 KENYA TIME Normal Board - The Whole shebang Prompt Board Next day settlement Expert Board All you need re an Individual stock.
The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site http://www.rich.co.ke
Macro Thoughts |
read more |
|
After Descent to Hell, Miners Emerge Blinking Into Daylight Commodities |
When the biggest names in mining arrive in London this week, the surroundings will be familiar, the mood unrecognisable.
A year ago as prices slumped, talk at the annual London Metal Exchange gathering was of bloodletting and journeys through hell. On Tuesday, the 1,900 dinner guests under the huge tulip-shaped chandeliers of the Great Room in Park Lane’s Grosvenor House Hotel, will be relieved to have survived the industry’s biggest crisis in decades.
“This time last year, I was talking about a commodity-specific financial crisis,” said Colin Hamilton, head of commodities research at Macquarie Group Ltd. “The rally in commodity prices has taken that off the table. The foot is really off the throat.”
|
read more |
|
Cashew Prices Are About to Go Nuts Commodities |
Get ready for some cashew sticker shock.
The global popularity of the kidney-shaped nut has been growing faster than any other tree nut -- even almonds. Demand jumped 53 percent since 2010, industry data show. Now the worst drought in a century for Vietnam, the largest exporter, is raising concern that supplies will be even tighter in a market valued at $5.2 billion.
A lack of rain in the once-fertile Mekong Delta and elsewhere in Vietnam has cut output of its major agricultural exports including rice, black pepper, coffee and seafood. This year’s cashew harvest fell 11 percent, and domestic prices jumped by as much as a third to an all-time high, a growers’ group estimates. That spells trouble for buyers in the U.S., by far the biggest importer.
While peanuts, which grow underground, are by far the most popular in the nut world, cashews have overtaken walnuts and pistachios in recent years to trail only almonds in the $30 billion market for tree nuts, International Nut and Dried Fruit Council data show. Global cashew consumption in 2014, the most-recent data available, reached a record 716,682 metric tons, up from 469,241 tons in 2010, council data show.
The domestic price of raw nuts has jumped to 52,000 dong ($2.33) a kilogram, the highest on record, from 38,000 dong at the start of the year, according to the cashew association.
Emerging Markets
Frontier Markets
|
read more |
|
Comment: The house of cards has collapsed - Joseph Hanlon Africa |
Last week saw the final collapse of a house of cards built from greed and hubris. Mozambique admitted it cannot pay its debts; last week it was announced poverty and inequality increased; and it was accepted that inflation will hit 30% and devaluation will exceed 100%. The United States announced that LAM has accepted bribes from Brazil. And then the mediators went home in frustration as an unwinnable war continues, with Renamo demanding the impossible and Frelimo refusing to make essential concessions.
The results of the poverty survey announced last week showed that while in 2003, 55% of the rural population was below the poverty line, it had only been reduced to 50% last year. Two decades of lack of development mean that half the rural population is still below the poverty line. And President Nyusi, speaking in Mopeia, admitted that “very little” had been done to support agriculture – confirming what Joao Mosca and others have been saying for more than a decade.
Frelimo has blown an incredible $3 billion. Not just the $2.2 bn in secret debt, but extra money for the Katembe bridge, Nacala airport, the Bank of Mozambique building, and the presidential palace, as well as large state company debts. And last week the cost became clearer with the admission that Maputo will not now have an essential bus rapid transit system because it cannot guarantee the loan. This is being repeated across the economy.
Last week, the house of cards collapsed. This week many people will be trying to explain why they did not see that it was a house of cards and will be trying to defend their positions – in some cases to prevent themselves being dismissed, jailed, or losing contracts, money, or the confidence of their superiors.
Threats of a demonstration on 29 April were met with new armoured cars on the streets of Maputo. A demonstration scheduled for 21 May was banned and an organiser of the march was beaten during an attempted kidnap. Maputo has been quiet since then, despite an escalating cost of living. But how long will ordinary people tolerate rising prices and a bankrupt and ineffective government?
|
read more |
|
RDC: des revelations genantes pour la famille Kabila a la Une d'un journal belge RFI Africa |
Sensational revelations about the DRC in a Belgian daily "Le Soir". They are mostly very embarrassing for the family of Joseph Kabila. Jean-Jacques Lumumba, a senior officer of the BGFI (first central African bank), slammed the door of the bank in Kinshasa bank close to the family of the Congolese president, after refusing to be complicit in suspicious transactions . He went then to deliver numerous and compromising files to the Belgian daily.
At the heart of the revelations, there is a bank, BGFI. It is headed by a childhood friend of Kabila, Francis Selemani Mtwale, very near that grew up with him during the years of exile in Tanzania.
One of the documents released by the Belgian daily Le Soir shows for example that one of the accounts of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) of Congo, which housed the money to finance elections in the DRC, was regularly punctured and this under very shady conditions.
|
read more |
|
Why Magufuli visit to Kenya is crucial Nation Kenyan Economy |
“I am hoping this visit might prove an opportunity to reset relations and seek better alignment between our two countries. There is so much to be gained from being collaborative rather than adversarial — President Kenyatta has a ‘Bill Clinton charm’ and if I were advising him I would say ‘look, reach in, cut through the noise and start telling the Bulldozer that it needn’t be a zero sum game,” said economic analyst and chief executive of Rich Management Aly-Khan Satchu.
“Our relationship with our neighbour has been sub-optimal for a very long time. There is an opportunity here to reset relations - I hope we can seize it.”
Mr Satchu said that President Magufuli has captured the East African imagination with his no-nonsense and populist style.
“He has some serious feathers in his cap already (the pipeline and the railway are two very big “geopolitical” wins right there) so we need to treat him as a worthy and already proven adversary,” said Mr Satchu.
|
read more |
|
Kenya is "quite important to Tanzania," President John Magufuli told reporters upon arriving Monday in the northern neighbor's capital city, Nairobi, for a two-day visit. Kenyan Economy |
Magufuli cited data from the Tanzania Investment Center, which reports that 529 Kenyan companies have invested roughly $1.7 billion in Tanzania, creating employment for about 56,000 Tanzanians.
Tanzania is the fastest-growing economy in East Africa, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said the countries would revive the Kenya Tanzania Joint Commission for Cooperation (JCC) before year’s end to enhance investment and trade.
The state visit “is meant to strengthen the relations between both countries,” Kenyatta said, adding that if Kenya and Tanzania are to expand their economies and create jobs for youth, then the countries should “walk together."
Tension over Uganda pipeline
Economic relations between the two nations have been somewhat strained by competition.
In March, Uganda opted to run a large oil pipeline through Tanzania instead of Kenya. Uganda cited security concerns and a price tag that was $1 billion cheaper than the one proposed by Kenya.
Tanzania also won a deal to host a new railway that will connect the Democratic Republic of Congo and the East African coast.
And just last month, Tanzania pushed the six-member East African Community to delay signing an economic partnership agreement with the European Union, which would guarantee traders duty-free access to the EU market. Kenya supported signing the treaty. Besides Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, community members include Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan, which joined this spring.
Economic analyst Aly Khan Satchu of Nairobi-based Rich Management said this week’s state visit offers Kenyatta a chance to recalibrate relations with Magufuli after a series of setbacks.
"He’s scored some big wins against Kenya," Satchu said of Magufuli, citing the oil pipeline and railway deals, so he’s "a worthy adversary, somebody who obviously very focused on the Tanzania national interest.
"But given the current situation," Satchu continued, "I think Kenya would be wise to try and sort of reset existing relations, look at what can be done to increase trade and seek better alignment as the East African Community and the market open up."
According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Kenya is Tanzania’s largest trading partner in Africa.
|
read more |
|
|
|
|