Economy
FG to Assist MSMEs with Funding to Ease Cost of Doing Business
By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has reiterated its commitment to provide access to funding and reduce the cost of doing business for Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs Doris Uzoka-Anite, said this while inaugurating over two million small businesses registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) on Wednesday, in Abuja.
“We will provide our support to get cheaper funding and intervention grants to get more people in and reduce the cost of funding for the MSMEs,
“We heard your prayer about how we can reduce the business registration cost for the MSMEs, it is also part of the things we can intervene on.
“And these are part of the things President Bola Tinubu’s administration is excited about to create jobs, ensure financial inclusion, poverty alleviation; and all these adds to economy development,’’ she said, according to a statement.
The Minister added that many people have ideas but are not able to implement them because they lack access to the right education, finance, and learning environment.
“So, we are happy to collaborate with you, to support what you are doing.
“I know there are many more people like you (Moniepoint) and we are willing to support them to bring more people into the financial sector and help the government achieve its mandate,” she stated.
Also speaking, CAC’s Registrar-General, Mr Hussaini Magagi, said the giant stride the commission had achieved so far, was due to the support and guidance of the Minister of Trade.
“This happened under the watch of the current Minister of Trade, because of the free hand given to us to ensure compliance of the Company and Allied Matters Acts (CAMA).
“We are registering two million small businesses through our partner Moniepoint, and we are targeting to register over 20 million this year.
“And this will attract revenue to the government, create jobs among other things,’’ Mr Magaji said.
On his part, the Managing Director of Moniepoint, Mr Babatunde Olofin, said the company had a lot of customers who were into small businesses but were not included in the formal sector.
“We help small businesses to grow their businesses. During the cash crunch, when people were not able to transact their businesses, we aided the provision of point-of-sale (POS) terminals.
“We provided financial services to these businesses, came up with a slogan that says “trade in the business you like” and they all rushed in and in a space of short time, we had over two million customers.
“Now we decided to ally with CAC, to enrol the over two million customers that we have into CAC boot.
“And in a matter of five years, we plan to have about 30 million businesses registered with CAC which is going to be a groundbreaking event in Nigeria,’’ Mr Olofin said.
He said the plan of the organisation was not only to register the businesses but also to provide them with other financial support.
He said, “The best way to execute things in mass is to introduce technology that is why we are also partnering with Norebase, a technology company.
“So that as people open an account with us, we send the transaction through Norebase to CAC and the people are registered. At the end of the day, it will be a win-win for us all.’’
According to Mr Olofin, the bank also intended to woe the over 10 million businesses trading on platforms such as Instagram to be included in the formal sector.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has once again trimmed its 2024 and 2025 oil demand growth forecasts.
The bloc made this in its latest monthly oil market report for December 2024.
The 2024 world oil demand growth forecast is now put at 1.61 million barrels per day from the previous 1.82 million barrels per day.
For 2025, OPEC says the world oil demand growth forecast is now at 1.45 million barrels per day, which is 900,000 barrels per day lower than the 1.54 million barrels per day earlier quoted.
On the changes, the group said that the downgrade for this year owes to more bearish data received in the third quarter of 2024 while the projections for next year relate to the potential impact that will arise from US tariffs.
The oil cartel had kept the 2024 outlook unchanged until August, a view it had first taken in July 2023.
OPEC and its wider group of allies known as OPEC+ earlier this month delayed its plan to start raising output until April 2025 against a backdrop of falling prices.
Eight OPEC+ member countries – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman – decided to extend additional crude oil production cuts adopted in April 2023 and November 2023, due to weak demand and booming production outside the group.
In April 2023, these OPEC+ countries decided to reduce their oil production by over 1.65 million barrels per day as of May 2023 until the end of 2023. These production cuts were later extended to the end of 2024 and will now be extended until the end of December 2026.
In addition, in November 2023, these producers had agreed to voluntary output cuts totalling about 2.2 million barrels per day for the first quarter of 2024, in order to support prices and stabilise the market.
These additional production cuts were extended to the end of 2024 and will now be extended to the end of March 2025; they will then be gradually phased out on a monthly basis until the end of September 2026.
Members have made a series of deep output cuts since late 2022.
They are currently cutting output by a total of 5.86 million barrels per day, or about 5.7 per cent of global demand. Russia also announced plans to reduce its production by an extra 471,000 barrels per day in June 2024.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A minority equity stake in Chappal Energies Mauritius Limited has been acquired by a Nigerian energy firm, Aradel Holdings Plc.
This deal came a few days after Chappal Energies purchased a 53.85 per cent equity stake in Equinor Nigeria Energy Company Limited (ENEC).
Chappal Energies went into the deal with Equinor to take part in the oil and gas lease OML 128, including the unitised 20.21 per cent stake in the Agbami oil field, operated by Chevron.
Since production started in 2008, the Agbami field has produced more than one billion barrels of oil, creating value for Nigerian society and various stakeholders.
As part of the deal, Chappal will assume the operatorship of OML 129, which includes several significant prospects and undeveloped discoveries (Nnwa, Bilah and Sehki).
The Nnwa discovery is part of the giant Nnwa-Doro field, a major gas resource with significant potential to deliver value for Nigeria.
In a separate transaction, on July 17, 2024, Chappal and Total Energies sealed an SPA for the acquisition by Chappal of 10 per cent of the SPDC JV.
The relevant parties to this transaction are working towards closing out this transaction and Ministerial Approval and NNPC consent to accede to the Joint Operating Agreement have been obtained.
“This acquisition is in line with diversifying our asset base, deepening our gas competencies and gaining access to offshore basins using low-risk approaches.
“We recognise the strategic role of gas in Nigeria’s energy future and are happy to expand our equity holding in this critical resource.
“We are committed to the cause of developing the significant value inherent in the assets, which will be extremely beneficial to the country.
“Aradel hopes to bring its proven execution competencies to bear in supporting Chappal’s development of these opportunities,” the chief executive of Aradel Holdings, Mr Adegbite Falade, stated.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Afriland Properties Plc helped the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange record a 0.04 per cent gain on Tuesday, December 10 as the share price of the property investment rose by 34 Kobo to N16.94 per unit from the preceding day’s N16.60 per unit.
As a result of this, the market capitalisation of the bourse went up by N380 million to remain relatively unchanged at N1.056 trillion like the previous trading day.
But the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) closed higher at 3,014.36 points after it recorded an addition of 1.09 points to Monday’s closing value of 3,013.27 points.
The NASD OTC securities exchange recorded a price loser and it was Geo-Fluids Plc, which went down by 2 Kobo to close at N3.93 per share, in contrast to the preceding day’s N3.95 per share.
During the trading session, the volume of securities bought and sold by investors increased by 95.8 per cent to 2.4 million units from the 1.2 million securities traded in the preceding session.
However, the value of shares traded yesterday slumped by 3.7 per cent to N4.9 million from the N5.07 million recorded a day earlier, as the number of deals surged by 27.3 per cent to 14 deals from 11 deals.
Geo-Fluids Plc remained the most active stock by volume (year-to-date) with 1.7 billion units sold for N3.9 billion, trailed by Okitipupa Plc with 752.2 million units valued at N7.8 billion, and Afriland Properties Plc with 297.5 million units worth N5.3 million.
Also, Aradel Holdings Plc remained the most active stock by value (year-to-date) with 108.7 million units worth N89.2 billion, followed by Okitipupa Plc with 752.2 million units valued at N7.8 billion, and Afriland Properties Plc with 297.5 million units sold for N5.3 billion.
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