Reports

1. Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company ARAMCO may go public early next year
The world’s biggest flotation. London’s Stock Exchange now appears to have the upper hand as the location for the foreign listing, in intense competition with New York. This follows heavy lobbying by Britain’s Prime Minister, Treasury Minister, throw in lunch at Buckingham Palace by the Queen for Saudi strongman Crown Prince Salman.
Saudi- Aramco hopes to raise $100 billion by selling a stake of 5percent in the IPO, valuing the company at a mind -boggling $2 trillion.

2. Nigeria stays away from recently launched African free trade agreement.
However much you argue that Nigeria should have studied the implications of the agreement, at the discussion stage, so as to modify its provisions, you would still agree that the reasons for declining to sign for now are cogent. Nigeria manufacturers argue that the infrastructure deficits in the country have first to be addressed, otherwise manufactured goods from Nigeria would not be able to compete in the area. Such infrastructure deficits include, particularly, epileptic electricity supply from the national grid forcing manufacturing firms to buy costly big generators to provide their own power at high operational fuel costs, bad roads and the horrendous Apapa port exit congestion.

3. Nigeria earned a total revenue of N10.6 trillion in 2017 from both oil and non-oil sources, according to a Central Bank Report. To put this in perspective, it means that shell alone (paying N1.5billion) contributed about 15% of the country’s income. Also for the period, estimates are that the oil revenue represents over 90% of total export revenue.
4. UN dues: Only 10 Africa countries including Nigeria, have this year paid their regular budget dues to the United Nations. Nigeria’s payment was $5.08million. World-wide, one hundred and nineteen countries are yet to pay their regular budget dues.

5. Zimbabwe’s President Mmangagwa
Zimbabwe’s president Mmangagwa on a state visit to China oversaw the signing of bilateral strategic economic agreements between Zimbabwe and China. Current infrastructural projects being undertaken by China in Zimbabwe include a solar power complex, a new international airport near Harare and a new parliament building.
Mmangagwa “open for business”

6. Liberian President Weah’s request for 5000 Nigerian teachers to bolster
his country’s lagging educational system may run into serious hitches. Big problems have to do with the quality and numbers of available Nigerian teachers. The biggest question is whether Nigeria indeed has surplus qualified teachers to export. There is no indication that President Weah’s request is on the front burner for attention and implementation at Nigeria’s federal Ministry of Education. Of course, there are thousands of unemployed Nigerian graduates. But can they effectively teach without an orientation course? Where will 5000 graduates get the orientation course in Nigeria?

7. Norway’s Sovereign Wealth fund -what they call the oil fund – has reached a staggering one trillion dollars ($1trillion)
Its scale of operation is unparalleled. It owns an average of 1.4 percent of every listed company world-wide. Nigeria has, on paper, a sovereign wealth fund where surplus oil revenue – that is surplus to budget – was supposed to be kept. But it has been frequently raided or gutted by successive federal and state governments over the years. Nigeria’s fund is now literarily moribund. It requires financial discipline to maintain a credible oil fund.

8. Japan crackdown on Cryptocurrency
Japan’s financial Services agency has ordered two cryptocurrency exchanges – Bitstation and FSHO- to stop doing business for a month. Five others, including Coincheck, were instructed to improve internal controls and report back to the regulator.
The action follows an investigation into digital currency exchanges that found poor compliance with anti-money laundering standards, badly trained staff and “misappropriated” cryto-currencies. The probe followed a $500million theft, in January at Coincheck, one of the largest operators

9. President Mmangagwa insists Zimbabwe is “open for business”.
He should have added under certain conditions – one of which, just announced is that mining companies must list locally in the Harare stock exchange. However, observers see this as merely an attempt to integrate the foreign mining companies into the local economic environment and is under constant review.

10. South Africa has just kicked-off $4.7 billion of delayed renewable energy contracts. It is a move to reduce reliance an coal- which today powers more than 70% of that nation’s production of electrically about 50,000 megawatts annually. – ten times Nigeria’s just about 5000 megawatts.

11. United States and China: Is a trade war looming or a negotiated settlement?
In the past weeks, the United States and China have been engaged in a tit-for -tat exercise, slamming heavy tariffs on imports from each other. Imports affected ranged in the tens of billions of dollars. The Americans have targeted China’s steel and aluminum and innovative technical goods, like satellite and communications gear. China has targeted American soybeans and pork products, vehicles and Boeing aircraft sales .The tariffs don’t go into effect immediately. Who would blink first and head for the negotiating table – the win-win path? China believes it cannot be bullied, that its citizens have a higher pain threshold than the Americans – that is – its citizens can absorb more pain, if it’s a trade war- the lose-lose scenario? Only the coming weeks will tell?

12. Nigeria ranks first in Sub-saharan Africa in terms of the size of its population without electricity. According to a UN report about 80million Nigerians are not connected to the National electric grid. After India, Nigeria is the second largest in the world. But this is no consolation because India’s total population is more than six times that of Nigeria.

13. How to stay Forever Young
British scientists have found that a lifetime of vigorous exercise will let you keep the body of a 20 year-old well into your 70s.
The findings, published in the journal AGING CELL says that the physical decline, thought to be an inevitable part of aging, is actually the result of not exercising enough. Regular cyclists, it stresses, maintained the muscles, lungs, fitness, blood pressure and even the immune systems of people decades younger. “People become more sedentary as they get older with less than 5% of over 65s doing the recommended two-and a-half hours of moderate exercise a week”
Any high-intensity exercise, even climbing stairs, ten times a day, is likely to help you stay young – previous research has found.

14. Royal Dutch Shell paid a total of $4.3 billion (about N1.5 trillion) to Nigeria’s Federal Government in 2017, according to the oil giant’s annual payments report.
A breakdown of the amount shows that Shell paid about $3.2billion for production entitlement, just over $765 million in taxes, about $246million in royalties and $14 million in fees.
Shell’s payment to Nigeria is the highest to any country where it is operating.
The next highest payment is to Malaysia, which received $1.15billion, Iraq with $3.39billion and Brazil about $1.6billion.