MPC Meeting: CBN Leaves All Rates Unchanged

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Mr Wale Edun, has said the country is unable to clear up to $6.8 billion of overdue forward payments in the foreign exchange market, noting that this is preventing the Naira from gaining stability. Speaking in an interview on Thursday, Mr Edun lamented that the country’s FX market is facing a serious liquidity crisis due to low flows. “The issue we have now is that the market is not liquid enough,” he said in an interview in New York, per Bloomberg. The Minister said that resolving the overdue contracts would allow the Naira

By Adedapo Adesanya The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange suspended trading in the shares of VFD Group Plc months after the proprietary investment company revealed its intention to list its stocks on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited to allow it gain access to public equity markets, increase its visibility, and strengthen its financial position. The group joined the NASD trading platform in 2020. In a notice, the NASD OTC Exchange said investors would not be able to trade securities of VFD Group Plc with effect from Friday, September 22, 2023 (today). This is per the company’s request to delist from

By Dipo Olowookere The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited witnessed a pullback of 0.03 per cent on Wednesday after investors took a second look at their exposure to local equities, though as some were dumping, a few were mopping up. According to data obtained by Business Post, traders bought and sold 566.6 million shares worth N5.4 billion during the trading session in 8,201 deals compared with the 676.7 million shares valued at N5.9 billion traded in 7,659 deals on Tuesday, implying a rise in the number of deals by 7.08 per cent and a decline in the trading volume and value

By Dipo Olowookere Ellah Lakes Plc can now go ahead with its plans to raise fresh capital through a rights issue to shareholders, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has declared. In 2022, shareholders of the company authorised the board to source about N2.90 billion. The board later filed an application to the SEC to carry out the transaction. In an update on Wednesday, Ellah Lakes informed the investing community that the apex regulatory agency for the country’s capital market had approved its request. The firm, which operates in the agricultural sector, intends to get N2.90 billion from shareholders from

By Dipo Olowookere An agricultural development programme tagged Green Imperative was launched on Thursday in Abuja. The scheme is a partnership between Nigeria and Brazil. The key objective of the scheme is to up-scale the country’s agriculture to boost food production, improve food security, expand job growth and ultimately boost household income in Nigeria. The project also aims to develop deep collaboration between Nigerian and Brazilian industries to deliver and use appropriate technologies to improve productivity in crops such as rice, cassava, cocoa, wheat, soya beans, and maize, sugar cane, tomatoes etc. It was gathered that the bilateral development programme

By Adedapo Adesanya The President of the United States, Joe Biden and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron have been named in leaked confidential files that show that global mobility tech company, Uber, flouted laws, duped authorities, and secretly lobbied governments to drive its growth. According to the Guardian, “more than 124,000 documents – known as the Uber files – lays bare the ethically questionable practices that fuelled the company’s transformation into one of Silicon Valley’s most famous exports.” It was disclosed that the leak spans a five-year period when Uber was run by its co-founder Travis Kalanick, who tried to

By Adedapo Adesanya The Nigeria Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) has so far realised about N15.3 billion as contributions to tackle the coronavirus pandemic in the country. This was made known in a document released by Mr Isaac Okorafor, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Director, Corporate Communications Department, in Abuja on Wednesday. The document showed that the money raised as at April 1, had CBN and Aliko Dangote as the highest contributors of N2 billion each. It also revealed that Mr Abdul Samad Rabiu (BUA Sugar Refinery), Mr Segun Agbaje (GTB), Mr Tony Elumelu (UBA),  Oba Otudeko (First

It was double honours for Chain Reactions Nigeria, one of the country’s leading Public Relations and Integrated Communications Consulting Firms and the Exclusive Nigerian Affiliate and Preferred West Africa’s Partner of Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm with presence in 65 countries across the globe, at the SABRE and Pitcher Awards. SABRE Awards, the world’s largest and most sought-after public relations awards competition which recognises superior achievement in branding and reputation, recently awarded Chain Reactions a Certificate of Excellence in the 2019 Sabre Awards Africa in the Technology Category for its excellent work on Facebook. The company founded 11 years

By Dipo Olowookere An interest group has maintained that the proposed anti-Federal Government protest in Lagos and Abuja scheduled for Monday, February 6, 2017, but cancelled by popular musician, 2Face Idibia, will go on as planned. A statement issued by the Co-Convener of Coalition in Defence of Nigerian Democracy and Constitution (CDNDC), Mr Ariyo-Dare Atoye, pointed out that the demonstration tagged #IStandWithNigeria will continue as scheduled. Mr Atoye noted that “the national protest was never about 2Face,” but the “consensus of Nigerians.” He further said, “We wish to inform Nigerians and the world at large that this protest against bad

By Timi Olubiyi, PhD It is no news that many economies including Nigeria are currently in recession. In reality, the year 2020 has been eventful, chiefly with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Its impact has continued to have a severe impact on businesses, households, and economies globally and one of its consequences is inflation. Even though inflation is a concept that affects all of us; but most importantly high inflation could be hostile to economy and business especially the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). With persistent inflation, businesses and households usually perform poorly, and expectedly more money is paid

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Wednesday released its monthly Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) Survey Report for the manufacturing sector of the economy. The manufacturing PMI for the month of January 2018 showed another expansion for the tenth consecutive month. The index dropped to 57.3 points from 59.3 points achieved in December 2017. The index shows changes in the level of business activities in the current month compared with the preceding month. According to the CBN, the 57.3 index points achieved in January 2018 showed growth at a slower rate, when compared to that in the

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha, has been directed to commence the process of review and replacement of those recently appointed into boards of federal government’s agencies. This directive was given by President Muhammadu Buhari following criticism that trailed the appointment of dead people into boards. In a chat with Punch, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, said the SFG is to scrutinise the list and ensure it was free of controversy. According to Mr Shehu, apart from the dead persons, those who have left