Hello, and welcome to Business Roundup this week. Here, we bring you highlights of events that happened during the week —from the capital market to the mainstream business activities, while not forgetting the tech/economy build up.
Here are the Headlines:
- Prices of goods to rise as Customs increases exchange rate
- FBN Holding appoints Femi Otedola as new chairman
- Dangote refinery turns to US for crude oil supply
- Minister suggests removal of electricity subsidy
Summary
Nigerians may be forced to pay more for goods as the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has increased the exchange rate for the clearance of goods from N951.94/$ to N1356.88/$.
A review of the Federal Government’s single-window trade portal of the customs service revealed that the previous exchange rate of N951.94/$1 has been revised upwards.
This is expected to cause an increase in the prices of goods in the market as the Customs levies duties on imported cargoes before they are cleared from the ports
FBN Holdings Plc, a leading financial institution in Nigeria, has appointed businessman, Mr. Femi Otedola as the new Chairman of its Board of Directors.
He will succeed Alhaji Ahmad Abdullahi as the company’s chairman.
FBN Holdings confirmed the appointment in a notice signed by the company’s Acting Secretary, Adewale Arogundade, and sent to the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) on Wednesday evening.
There are indications that Dangote refinery is set to turn to the US in the forthcoming months for supply of constant crude oil for the refinery.
This development was announced by Bloomberg on Monday.
Nigeria, the home country of the 650,000 barres per day refinery has been battling with inability to meet crude oil production quota in the past few years occasioned by rising incidents of crude oil theft, divestment from oil majors and insecurity across the Niger Delta.
Nigerians may soon have to pay more to enjoy additional supply of electricity supply, going by suggestions from the Minister of Power, Bayo Adelabu.
Adelabu, has expressed concerns that power plants operated by the government were currently under-utilised and only operating at 25 percent of their capacity.
This, he blamed on a variety of reasons ranging from unpaid debts and low gas supply.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed that all verified foreign exchange (FX) claims by airlines have been concluded with the payment of additional $64.44 million to the concerned foreign aviation firms.
This development was announced by Hakama Sidi-Ali, CBN’s acting director of corporate communications on Tuesday.
Sidi-Ali said the latest amount paid to the airlines brought the total verified sum disbursed to the sector to $136.73 million, stressing that all the verified airline claims have now been cleared.
ON NGX ROUND UP: Equities market closes week with N898bn profit
Driven by strong performance from Transcorp, Neimeth, and Meyer, investors in the Nigerian equities market gained N898 billion at the close of trading on Friday.
This followed the rise in market capitalization to N57.1 trillion from N56.2 trillion posted by the bourse the previous day.
Similarly, the All-Share Index (ASI) increased to 104,421.23 from 102,802.25 recorded on Thursday.
ON TECH SCENE: Opay, Africarare, YouLend, Interswitch, PayPal, Roboost, GSMA, Tesla, Paymob, Fund Park, Mastercard, OfferZen, are some of the names that made the headlines this week.
Africarare, a virtual reality and NFT hub based in Johannesburg, South Africa, is set to introduce its virtual token, $UBUNTU, in February.
Also, Tesla is facing legal action from 25 California counties, accusing the automaker of persistent mishandling of hazardous waste at various facilities across the state.
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