What The New Cybersecurity Levy Will Cost Nigerians + More | Business Incorporated

What The New Cybersecurity Levy Will Cost Nigerians + More | Business Incorporated

[Music] it’s time to do another 55 minutes trip around the world of business and it happens only here on business Incorporated you’re welcome to the program today here’s what we have for you in the next 55 minutes well a lot of dust has been raised by the cyber security Levy in Nigeria what does it mean to you and your transactions find out on this program [Music] and after days of flood thankfully the railway Services have resumed in Kenya Namibia is uh working on its renewable energy projects and they have some funding from the World [Music] Bank good afternoon welcome to buiness business Incorporated I’m in John meca Let’s do business beginning from the global space oil prices EDG high on Tuesday after Israel struck Rafa in Gaza with negotiations for a seized fire when Hamas continued without resolution Branch CR features were up 23 cents that’s about 0.28% at $83 56 per barrel while Us West T intermediate crude features Rose also 40 24 Cent that’s 0.31% to 78 .72 a barrel Palestinian militant group Hamas on Monday agreed to a Gaza seized fire proposal from mediators but Israel said the terms did not meet its demands and pressed ahead with strikes in Rafa while planning to continue negotiations on a deal Israeli forces struck Rafa on gaza’s Southern Edge from the air and ground and ordered residents to leave part of the city which has been a refuge for more than 1 million displac Palestinian lack of settlement between the parties in the now 7mon long conflict has supported oil prices as investors worry and Regional escalation of the war will disrupt Middle Eastern crude supplies still in the global space gold prizes slipped on Tuesday as the United States dollar affirmed while investors await more comments from the Federal Reserve officials further Clarity on the timeline for potential interest rate cut spot gold was down 0.5% 23311 per ounce us gold features fell 0.4% to $2,321 770 per ounce the US dollar Index gained 0.2% against its Rivals making gold less attractive for other currency holders China’s Central Bank added 60,000 troy ounces of gold to its reserves in April according to data extending the period of consecutive purchases to 18 months despite High gold prices investors now look forward to comment from fed officials said to speak this week including fed Bank of minneapol President uh who is speaking later on today fed funds features Traders are pricing in a more than 67% probability that the US Central Bank will begin cutting rate in September and uh according to cme’s Fed watch and copper prizes in London Rose above key resistance level of $110,000 metric ton boiled by renewed hopes for us interest rat occur this year meanwhile Congo signed an updated agreement in March uh to in it to its 2008 deal to trade Kappa and Cobalt from a joint mining venture known as ccoms for development and um under the new contract published on May the 3 Congo will get 324 million for infrastructure projects from his Chinese partners and then uh in Nigeria Levy of 0.5% equivalent to half a perent of all electronic transactions value by the business specified in the second uh shedule of the Cyber crimes prohibition and prevention act 2015 is to be remitted to the National cyber Security fund administered by the National Security advisor this is contained in a cirular from the Central Bank of Nigeria to all commercial merchants non-interest and payment services Banks the regulation uh no regulator notes that the levy shall be applied at the point of electronic transfer origination and it should reflect in the customers account at cyber security Levy and this is set to begin in two weeks that’s about May 20 uh of this month financial institutions will remit the levies monthly to the mcf account don’t me at the CBN by The Fifth Fifth business day of subsequent month the secular is signed by the director of payment system management uh Department that’s a chibuzo eobi as well as the Director of financial policy and regulation Department Haruna Mustafa so obviously that’s a very big deal in Nigeria at this time that’s 0. 5% uh that will be added to what we already pay so now’s have let’s see the other charges Bank charges that consumers pay for in Nigeria if we could have that uh slide at this time of the other charges I’m sure you’re familiar with them there you have them there so you have this cyber security charge of 0.5% of of any transaction you have the transfer fee uh that’s 10 NAA charge on transaction below 5,000 NAA uh 50 NAA for uh for transactions above 50,000 NAA then there’s the stamp duties also uh that’s 15 Nair being charged for transactions between 10,000 and 10 million naira there’s a short messaging code that’s about four naira there’s also value added tax on short messaging service on SMS then there’s also the vat on transactions there’s the inflow and outflow fees there’s of course the ussd charges there’s your card um maintenance fee that’s every month of course when you ask for card uh renewal or in the area of theft or time of theft that is also you’re also being charged so um that’s about 10 of them I hope I do not miss out anyone uh but you can you can always share that with us so I mean what will Nigerians be paying for transactions and there I was thinking that the government perhaps was thinking of uh reducing cash based transactions and encouraging cashless societies so if I have to pay 0.5% of the value of a transaction every time I have to carry out a transactions how attractive is that for me to turn to uh the electronic transactions the exemptions exemptions being um on your salary if you maybe when you’re being paid your salary into your account um but guess what when you’re transacting from your salary to make payments you will pay you will pay 0.5% of that value you know and then uh but the time the person you’re transacting I was talking to somebody before I came on there that if you’re going to buy a loaf of bread with your card that means you pay 0.5 if the seller of the bread is going to transfer the money to the bakery where he or she gets the bread then he or she will also pay 0.5 isn’t that multiple taxation that we’re coming to which is why we have that presidential committee on tax reforms the presidential the led by Mr tailan I mean they have sent out a statement to sh to say that they just got this it’s not originating from from them and they’re looking into it to also have a conversation from where it’s originating from but let’s delve more into this with Dr M Yu is the Chief Executive Officer of center for the promotion of private Enterprises Dr Yu um another tax is upon us and there we were hoping that oh it’s the ease of doing business we doing cashless policy we’re complaining that there’s too much M1 I think that’s money in circulation and all of that and now somebody said going to go and withdraw their money and start doing physical transactions well uh that is likely to be the response of some of the bank customers uh because just as you said there is enough burden already both on the citizens and on businesses and if I may put this in perspective currently in terms of Taxation businesses pay company Tax they pay tary education tax they pay n Levy they pay n Levy there is police trust fund Levy and only recently we have been hearing of NYC Levy then we also talking about tertiary he Levy we have stamp duties all of these are being paid by businesses and indirectly also by the citizens and at a time when we are grappling with high inflation we are grappling with High Cost of Living High Cost of doing business I think this is not the time at all for this kind of you know legislation to be thrown upon us either as business people or as Nigerians and my concern here is that this is a legislation of the National Assembly the National Assembly is supposed to be the representatives of the people so I’m wondering how come this legislation went through the National Assembly I never had any dissenting voice from the National Assembly until this is put on and all these taxes I mentioned mind you and that is what makes a lot of difference between this and other taxes most of those taxes are on profit in other words you have done your business made some redu I mean take away your cost declare profit then you pay tax on it but this one is on all your transactions and and this is emanating from the Cyber crimes prohibition Act of 2015 amended yes so um perhaps you know it’s from 2014 and then amended to 2015 did we miss you know the implementation of it and then we just have to start implementing it now no no I I think this new Levy is likely to be part of the amendment and by the way I’m not even 2015 it’s amended 2015 no it’s an act of 2024 this one yes Act of 2024 so I’m not aware when this there was whether there was any public hearing whe they listen to the stakeholders on this you know it’s it’s a major concern and in any case we are not talking about small amounts of money here if you do a transaction say of 1 billion I’m talking ofir business 1 billion naira they going to pay a cyber security level of 5 million if as a big business you do a business of say 100 billion they going to pay 500 million how much profit are you going to make from the business you have not talked about other taxes so and in any case if you look at the base number we are talking about electronic payment the latest figure from the nibbs or nibss nibss yes put the as at 2023 he payment data was 600 trillion so if you are taking 5% of that they talking about close to maybe 3 trillion even if you discount it to you know make allowance for all those exemptions you are still coming to close to 2 trillion are you going to now use trillion to do to fight a cyber crime so I mean even the fighting of the cyber cyber crime is it should also come to question so this is going to be sent into the uh cyber Security fund um and used by the NSA Security National Security advisor and all of that and and a lot of people will say okay if this is for to protect businesses even before now what role have we seen the security advisor of the office of the security advisor what role have they been doing in fighting cyber security on behalf of the private sector perhaps that could justify you know why we have to contribute to the existence and running of of that cyber crime well In fairness to them you know most of the activities are not very visible they may be doing a whole lot underground because it’s an intelligence driven uh function but even then that cannot justify this kind of amount the totality of budget for the entire security defense team in 2020 uh 4 budget was about 3.3 trillion I’m talking of the Armed Forces and the police the total budget for infrastructure by the federal is about 1.32 trillion and mind you they not likely to get the entire thing know there’s a different between appropriation and all this the actual money they get so how do you relate that if you are spending 1.3 uh trillion for infrastructure I’m talking of Roads Railways Aviation all infrastructure that government is f government is involved in now we are talking about close to 1.5 to2 trillion on cyber crime or cyber security this thing doesn’t add up and the important thing to make here is that it is important for consultations to take place within government because I even with stakeholders it is very this is a democracy because I imagine the implication of this now fors for the cost of doing business I imagine the implication for what the government itself is even trying to do to harmonize taxes has been working there and night to say I can prune down the number of levies and taxes he talking about single digit taxes he has not even concluded assignment we are having this new new tax and you know what would have thought that um since we have a committee on tax reforms then if there was going to be any introduction or adjustment then the the committee would be involved you know that is what I expect and not just the even all all the Imagine The implication of this now for even this cashless policy it’s a complete negation of the cashless policy of government and we have made a lot of progress a lot of our citizens have been on boarded into this electronic platform you know now with this now it’s going to be a complete reversal of people’s actions because if you know you are going to pay this much just for because you are then you you you better you better go and be doing cash transaction so what are the options left for Nigerians now um this is supposed to begin like May the 20th the option is not for Nigeria the option is for the policy makers for goodness sake yeah but Nigerians are going to be affected can’t talk of course we are talking another people are talking and more people will still talk this is a democracy this kind of law should be reviewed I mean it’s to is too much of a burden we are not talking of taxes on profit tax on all your transactions I just told you by nibss trans was 600 trillion and if you look at the data from the CBN that’s industry e- payment data the data is showing as at 202 2 1,550 trillion 1,550 trillion they call it quadrillion that’s 1.5 quadrillion this the first time I’m even knowing that something like a quadrillion when you have 1 trillion 1 trillion you know so it is it is at least 1,000 trillion I mean 1,550 1,550 trillion that’s 1.5 quadrillion so the point is that the amount involved in form of tax on the citizens on businesses is is is is is impossible it’s outrageous so we have to go to the back to the drawing board so would you say that perhaps um a smaller percentage would have been more acceptable no no we need to situate within the totality of our priorities I mean how can you allocate I think this kind of is is a revenue source for the government perhaps and we know that the government is broke at this time this is not going into a common P this is just for cyber crime I just told you even the big security issue we are dealing with the total budget for the security apparatus of government in 2024 budget was about 3 3.3 trillion we not talking of over over a trillion just for cyber security no no no no and if you must tax I don’t think this is the best way you don’t begin to tax transactions whether you are making losses whether you not making losses whether you a poor man whether you do you unemployed whether it’s a charity gift yeah everything everything everything is taxed I think the burden on the citizens is extremely too much and it has to be reviewed and we need to call out our National Assembly they are there to repres present us as Citizens if this thing went through them and I’m not sure the CI were ever consulted and just have this kind of thing so we need to look at it generally we need to look at the implication for the citizens for the cost of living for the cost of doing business for investment for the for the welfare of the people for the cashless policy of government is going to affect a whole lot of things so my my view is that this thing just has to be reviewed we need to go back to drawing board and have further consultation we appreciate the fact that cyber crime is a very big issue just as terrorism arm robbery and all of that we also appreciate the even infrastructure is a big issue all of the things require funding so we have to do some issue around analysis around proportionality of even spending how must you go and be spending close to 2 trillion on on on on cyber crime and cyber security I think we need to to go back and review it I mean this is not something that should stand the way it is I don’t think so all right uh Dr muda well I think we woke up to this I woke up to this circular this morning so and it’s all over the social media obviously because I mean I talk about 0.5 that’s half a percent of everything you spend you know it’s not even you know digit of 0 0.05 or something multiples of transaction yes so but anyway we’ll stay on the issue but thank you so much for you know coming on Dr mud y the Chief Executive Officer of center for the promiss of private Enterprises thank you very much all right let’s take a break when we come back we’ll head to the market here business in corporate stay with us [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to back to watching business Incorporated right here on Channel television we head straight to the markets now with Will ibong and um will the Shocker that we had at the close of trade at the ngx yesterday I don’t think I’m over it yet no I’m not in I’m not because I I was so sure the market was going to end in the green at in day we saw that fantastic number and then whoa AEL Africa just came in and just that was a huge I think they lost more than 200 N lost about 220 Nara on each share and that was a huge one that drove the market it just nose dived you know back to 98,000 points back to 98,000 points I I don’t think I believe the number at first but well well we’ll see how we can what it is as they say negative sentiment still permitting but we’ll see if we can crawl out of that so we begin as always with major equities in Africa where sentiments were mostly positive at inaday except for Nigeria ngx which is saw negative sentiments uh intras at midday was trading at 0.28% down 98,000 points we saw some stocks like Dango sugar weighing down this index but we did see some gains from presco and zit bank and the rest of them but South Africa however in day was up 0.11% elsewhere Egypt egx resumed from the holiday with positive sentiments at in it was up 0.12% and we saw Kenya closing Monday’s trading session in negative territory now today we’re going to be discussing a major milestone in Ethiopia’s economic Journey last month Ethiopian Securities Exchange had successfully closed his capsule raising exercise and about 1.51 billion Ethiopian bear that’s about $26.6 million was raised in capital exceeding Expectations by 240% joining us is Mr tilahun kasahun chief executive officer Ethiopian security exchange ESX good afternoon sir it’s good to have you on the program good afternoon will good to have you all Mr kasahun first of all congratulations on exceeding your Capital raising Target by 240% we started this conversation in January I remember clearly and it’s been quite a journey in between Road shows across Adisa BBA Nairobi and London you set out to raise 631 million Ethiopian beer but ended up with 1.51 billion bear what does this achievement mean for Ethiopia’s first Securities Exchange do you attribute this success to the confidence of investors in the ESX thanks well yes exactly it’s a you know perhaps um very much exciting milestone for us it’s a pleasure to be with you today to talk about this at least you know when we were talking in January I must say we were very much confident we raise uh the capital that we want um but we do not expect to exceeded by this much and I think it’s a you know perhaps a testimony of the fact that uh that investors um as well as other players in the capital markets ecosystem in Ethiopia have perhaps you know voted through their you know investment uh for you know the successful launch of the exchange uh you know more than their capital and investment contribution I think it’s also uh a result of a perhaps a broader consensus that’s built around the exchange uh across uh all the investors and all the stakeholder players if you if you see you know uh especially our investor base it cut across both financial and non-financial institutions including foreign uh investors including the Nigerian exchange group uh so you know broadly I would say uh you know it’s a plus the to have you know b or Banks insurance companies non financial institutions that are domestic investors but also uh foreign investors um in the in the shareholder base of the exchange and we’re very much glad and I would say fortunate uh to have closed the capital race successfully in a very short period of time diverse uh B investor based there how do you see this in diverse base of investors contributing to the growth of the ESX good I mean I’m sure especially you know uh looking at it from looking at ASX from you know Nigeria it’s very much uh unique in a sense you know compared to the Nigerian experience where you have the ner exchange group and and also fmdq and N ND you you know you will see ESX is trying to bring all three types of markets in in one place so perhaps especially the significant involvement of the financial institutions in Ethiopia about 16 of all the major mature banks are investors around 12 insurance companies are investors in the exchange this already tells you uh that our debt Market our fixed income Market would be in a very strong footing uh and that’s something that is very much uh particular and uh pecular about the exchange which is our Our intention to build a very strong uh debt Market fixed income Market that serves financial sector players uh in Ethiopia and one of the things that we want to do here is obviously be a platform for interbank money market we would like to have uh a transparent uh repo Market that would serve as a pipe for uh our you know short to medium-term debt instruments and this is really uh important uh and you cannot achieve a debt Market without the invol the involvement of Banks and we’re very much um happy that the majority of the F and Commercial banks are are part of our shareholder base and the same thing is for our Equity Market uh uh you know we start with the investment holding uh government sovereign fund that is playing the promoter role and uh playing a key foundational role for the exchange 25% uh stake is allocated for government of Ethiopia through this ethopian investment holding uh the ethopian investment holding brings with itself itself um majority of the state own Enterprises uh so we’re very much confident that most of this Enterprises progressively will come in list on the exchange as we speak as of uh last month eh has made it official that about six of the state own Enterprises will come in list on the exchange we’ve been doing some Preparatory work for the past few months around some of the these s soes in addition to e and its subsidiaries we have about 16 about 17 non- financial institutions uh that are mostly engaged in manufacturing service sector operation in Ethiopia that also shareholders of the exchange and I would say I think majority of these investors in one way or another look at ESX as a platform to raise Capital uh to reform to change and perhaps to revamp their corporate governance standards so in a way I think this is already a solid foundation being built for our listing pipeline so very much you know the kind of investment mix that you want to have while you are establishing an exchange so what do you think is the most significant impact that the ESX will have on the overall growth that’s the Ethiopian economy in the next 5 to 10 years how what do you project for how do you see the esess contributing to Ethiopia’s growth so good question right so at the end of the day exchanges will be measured uh not by the amount of capital they’ve raised but but by the amount of capital they help government and private sector raise uh so our we measure our impact one on the way how we will create depth uh to the way government raises capital from domestic sources primarily and also attract foreign investors foreign portfolio investors into uh government instruments uh to date we we do not have you know very much mature um experience around the space we have very much limited issuance in terms of treasury bills by Bank uh so we would like to diversify and deepen uh both the types of instruments that are issued but also the types of investors that are participating in in in these instruments uh for instance know you have hardly any retail participation any mutual fund participation into this instruments very much you know almost zero participation foreign investor participation into this instrument so that’s something that we would like to see happen in the next um 5 to 10 years uh in fact very much in a short period of time it’s the same Logic for private sector very much limited scope for private um companies to raise Equity Capital uh currently almost you know we have about more than 2 million smmes business enterprises in Ethiopia but limited to bank finance self- financing Etc uh our Equity markets we have a very much informal unregulated OTC market that has raised capital for the past 30 40 years and we would like to expand the space in a regulatory environment attract and create confidence for domestic institutional investors but also foreign investors so you know at the end of the day our goal is to contribute to this huge financing Gap that both government and the private sector have okay so are there you mentioned some challenges now but are there any key challenges facing the ESX ahead of the launch in the last quarter of this year yes uh obviously so as a young nasan Market um you know the exchange cannot operate on its own um you know the past two years government of Ethiopia established the EOP and capital markets Authority The Exchange is being set up as a public private partnership but at the end of the day you need to have an ecosystem of players uh service providers investors that are coming along uh these two institutions and obviously uh playing in the market uh I think one of our key challenges is attracting those service providers um especially um uh at a time when you know ethiopan never had a properly regulated Capital markets environment so all our security Brokers dealers investment Banks Etc will will will be born new uh some of them are getting licenses so that’s will be a key you know capacity building program that we have to launch and and implement the other angle is obviously issuer Readiness uh huge appetite from private companies public sector municipalities to raise Capital but at the end of the day their ability to deliver for investors in terms of transparency obligations corporate governance Etc will remain to be a constant challenge it’s something that the exchange have to actively work on and in terms of developing the capacity I think most importantly uh the success of our Capital markets would be again measured by the speed with which we develop the domestic intial investor base and also create the right types of environment for foreign investors to actively come in and confidently invest into into the market so plenty of regulatory reforms that needs to happen uh and already are happening and again something that the exchange need to actively work on and develop thank you so much Mr kahun this say um kasahun we do know that when there are challenges there are opportunities and opportunities for potential investors to come in thank you so much Mr tilun kasaun chief executive officer Ethiopian Securities Exchange for coming on business Incorporated thank you for having me well so we move on to other markets Middle East we see the markets there were mostly negative at Inay Abu Dhabi trading up 0.38% Dubai however on the flip side 0.02% down and let’s look at Saudi and the Qatar indexes we see them down at in today quite bloody there 0.26 and 0.24% each let’s look at quickly now us markets and see how they performed in early trade today we see the Dow up 0.21% and the S&P 500 futures 0.05% Nasdaq futures slipped 0.15% investors have been bullish on the stocks ever since the lower jobs data on hopes that the FED will start cutting rates sooner than expected now Tuesday we’ll be relatively quiet on the econ economic front with just Consumer Credit Data from March scheduled for release later today I meanwhile Wall Street will be looking towards earnings report today from Disney Swiss bank UBS and now all giant BP earnings came in today and the company reported lower first quarter profits citing weer oil and gas prices let’s look to Asia now South Korean stocks dominated that L gains in that region we see it up 2.16% we know that they were on holiday national holiday yesterday today with Japan but today they coming on strong we see Japan also close 1.5% up but the anen index in China was down more than half a percent and we also see that mainland China if you see that mainland China also but M and China headed positive territory we see that in the green but we see the Reserve Bank of Australia also holding Benchmark interest rates at 4.35% for the fourth meeting in a row and we see that the S&P ASX 200 jumped after that news you know the decision is coming after that hold for interest rates you know investors analysts are saying that inflation is slowing in the country and they’re expecting it to slow further even though inflation is still high it is still slowing and that that’s the reason why they held rat for the fourth meeting in a row in it so we’re just going to be expecting uh big bigger news from Australia seeing that the inflation is going down but they say they’re still far away from the 2% Target that they have well wish them the best and also wish us the best thank you so much will let’s head to London now we see house prizes back again in the news this time it’s steady in April uh with higher mortgage rates and Juliana will always tell us this is where um residents feel the pinch the most high julana good afternoon so we’re talking house prizes again good afternoon innie that’s absolutely right we are talking house prices and I think one of the reasons why is it’s because it’s seen almost as a bell weather of The Wider UK economy which of course is under the microscope now um because we’re just still in a technical recession hopefully we will be out of that but we’re still waiting for data so we have had some data from Halifax the house price index earlier this morning and it does show that month for Monon house prices have ticked up by a couple of hundred pound it’s still incredibly expensive to buy a property in the UK and if you’ve got $288,900 5.25% we had all predicted that perhaps we would start seeing a fall in rates that’s not happened yet despite the fact that inflation has fallen to this country in this country to about 3% we’re not expecting interest rates to fall until August how does that impact house prices because of course if interest rates are high it costs higher to borrow very difficult for somebody to bring out £290,000 from their account they’re typically borrowing on that mortgage so what we had seen a couple of months ago um for quite a long lengthy period is that house prices had fallen or had stagnated uh because perhaps firsttime buyers or buy to let landlords um were managing their expectations right so they weren’t going in for those big houses um they were going for flats and smaller prices which has been indicated in the data because it does show that some of the fastest Rising properties in this country are smaller properties and those for Flats so a lot of Market um analysts are suggesting that perhaps the housing market is now getting used to um elevated interest rates in this country which is why we are starting to see an uptick in uh properties but again you know if you are trying to get on the ladder even though this is the lowest that we’ve seen in recent years it’s still incredibly High and of course if interest rates are going to start lowering in the next couple of months perhaps house prices will rise even further um still to come yeah just like we’re waiting for that uh interest rate Cuts in the US too we’re looking for that in the UK but uh heading to the market now BP uh they didn’t meet up with the Target The Profit Target and yet they still have this buyback share are still going on now maybe maybe you tell us what else is going on I know it’s a season of earnings everywhere it is a season of earnings um in and you’re absolutely right about BP um quite interesting because of course we know that the war um in Ukraine at one point saw a surge in oil and gas prices across the entire sector in fact I think um Market analysts were calling BP and shell profits this time last year extraordinary um a trading update it hasn’t been extraordinary this year although they still managed to bank 22.7 billion US in profit but quite shy of this time last year which is about 5 billion again you know they’re pointing um to what is happening with in the oil and gas industry I think Saudi aramco which is the biggest crude export they also released their trading update for first quarter earlier this morning and they have shown that their profits have also Fallen by about 14.5% I suppose depending on the region the reasons are quite different but terms of what’s happening in Riad I think that’s because they um deliberately decided to um shortcut their production to about 9 million barrels per day they of course can do up to 12 million barrels but it just goes to show the changing face of the sector also as well for BP slightly different issues they have in in compared to aramco because of course they’re much should we say loved CEO um Bernard Looney he was ousted wasn’t he in September some um relationship allegations he had within um the industry well within um BP now his predecessor his successor sorry Mari archin claes he is now on a c cost cutting um objective he’s got to save about $200 million over the next um couple of years he says he’s going to be doing that with digitization in fact in terms of the trading update I think B put aside a couple of hundred million dollar in terms of their cost cutting Drive um but in terms of the numbers the numbers are looking good in the UK at intraday a lot of this has also got to do with um some data we received from the construction industry showing that construction um output in the UK um has increased by the most it has over the past six months really good news because we’re waiting for that all important GDP data so we can finally get ourselves out of this technical recession so if we have a look at the numbers the all share in it’s up by triple digits 1.01% at injur day the 5100 it’s up by 0.98% and 5250 the domestic Market that’s up by a whooping 1.09% in the currency’s market the British pound is trading down against the US dollar that’s because of the uplift in the footy 100 it’s down by 0.20% the British pound is also down against the Euro by 0.15% but the pound is up against the Japanese Yen by 0.02% at Inay and thank you so much Julian good to have you all right now let’s go to Berlin and global trade is not all smooth this days Julian I did talk about uh you know that Regional tension still going on uh there’s also the US the EU and the Western partners are seemingly con constant battle we told you about China and the EU the other day Red Sea is not a place to go to now and this affecting EU trade L halter has the details Hi l good afternoon well thanks for having me enie the latest comes from Danish shipping giant MK one of the biggest firms in the business so big indeed with 730 container ships that it is widely seen as a bell weather for the industry and they’ve just said that the ongoing disruption to container shipping traffic in the Red Sea is actually increasing and that it is expected to reduce the industry’s capacity between the Far East and Europe by 15 to 20% in the second quarter MK says that it has diverted vessels surr Africa’s Cape of Good Hope since December that’s of course when Iran aligned houti militants began attacking ships passing through the B Alman DB straight that is the southern entry point into the Red Sea and uh that straight is just about 20 km wide at the narrowest point giving Rebels a relatively easy chance to attack ships passing by and to avoid any such attack mes and other shipping companies were forced to reroute their ships around Africa yeah that will obviously affect TR but let’s head to the markets now see what investors are doing well today earnings numbers are front and center there’s four Dax listed companies out with numbers and for the past week or two numbers have actually been a bit better than some had expected and it’s helped the Ducks cross over 18,000 points points where it currently sits but today numbers are mixed at best seens health in years turns out to a bit weaker than expected shipping service DHL has seen profits drop and uh from uh chipmaker inion we’re hearing that they’re seeing weakness too they’re lowering their outlook for the year and they talk about cutting costs all right L thank you so much for that heading to Africa now the World Bank has approved a loan of $1 138.5 million to Namibia and that’s to enhance the transmission Network and incorporate renewable energy project into its grid this was announced by the World Bank Namibia is one of the driest countries in subsaharan Africa with abundant Sunshine wind also is abundant there and it they aim to establish uh themselves as a hop for renewable energy this ambition coincides with significant offshore oil and gas discoveries that have made the country a focal point for Global exploration and in Kenya Railway operations have resumed this was announced by Kenya Railway services and that commuter train services on four routes had Haled operations because of the flaw in a statement the KR managing director stated that the four routes which include embakasi Village lenya and sgr Link train and so maku uh will resum operation on Tuesday that’s today however the MD states that the community services for limuru and ruu remain suspended because there’s an ongoing track repairs uh in that area and we come to Nigeria where the Nigerian electricity Regulatory Commission at nerk has reduced the exchange rate for calculating the current electricity tariff for band a customers by 16.03% from 1,463 nirra 30 Cobo for a dollar to 1,277 NAA 80 Cobo and that’s from May to December this is revealed in the commission’s multi-year Tariff order that’s the Mao for May to December 2024 and N Mao was reviewed following the appreciation of the naira in the Foreign Exchange Market in the last one month yesterday we told you how Zimbabwe has started the circulation of it new currency that’s the zig well today we can say that uh well they are now set to um value their budget for 2024 in the new Zig and this is supposed to start from the beginning of June and so we see the accountants General working on this and promising that it should be reviewed and shared by the 1 of June having the budget the 2024 budget in zig we now head to the crypto space now and see what’s going on there I can tell you from the side of my eyes that it’s a red board that we have today uh very very different from what we had yesterday talking about a flip but it’s just 1.7% and we know that uh the market is very very much alive so we see Bitcoin is down now from 65 we had this time yesterday to 64,0 21 it’s down 1.7% % uh we see it mostly red um salana managed to escape that $157 xrp kadano a AA all of them are in of course ethereum follows uh BTC and so it’s down also at the time Market was more about 70% in greed if I’m looking about the index yesterday but today we see it’s dropped to 68 even though it is still greedy but I think the biggest news in Nigeria is that uh uh announcement by the director general of the Securities and Exchange Commission uh a lot of people when he came in is less than a month old in office were like oh was his stands with cryptocurrency and there seem to be a lot of optimism but I don’t know if this will come as a shock that uh he’s asked that members of the crypto community in Nigeria name and shame players involved in the manipulation of the naira and the biggest part is they’re looking to delete naira from every P2P platform available in the country let’s have Solomon at Munday now uh tell us what the community crypto Community has been discussing around this hi Solomon good afternoon good afternoon good afternoon yes so so what have you guys been discussing crypto Community about this um well I don’t know intention proposal to delete Nara from the PTP okay okay the the the negative impact this would have on the crypto ecosystem is um it will slow down the pace at which the ecosystem was growing and the pace at which we having new persons un boarded into blockchain and crypto ecosystem and also it affect investment in one or two ways but talking about those that have been around this ecosystem for the longest period of time about since 25 216 and before then before now actually there was no way that people could be able to do P2P online but they were doing it via other memes making use of them social media platforms like WhatsApp and some other channels so I would say it be very very difficult even if the government were to delist um the ngn pair from all exchanges P2P goes beyond just exchanges it has to do with um people transacting at their own deemed or or desired rules and regulations so it’ll be quite difficult for the government to crack it down to the beest minimum so in some way I would say the OG Traders they are not very much affected by this because and they have their ways that they make use of to do P2P transactions but it’s a new bees and those that are still in the ecosystem that it’s affect the most sadly all right Solomon I know this is an ongoing conversation uh thank you so much but I mean I think uh the SEC DG has also invited the community into more conversations but thank you so much for um sharing your perspective with us this afternoon all right thank you very much so that’s it on the program thank you so much for being a part of business Incorporated do remember you can always watch this program and business morning anytime you want go to ww. youtube.com channels web and then look for business morning or business Incorporated and then you can repeat this experience at any time we have a lot of ongoing conversations waiting for us POS is back in the news you don’t want to miss it we’ll handle that tomorrow so join us business morning business Incorporated I’m John byebye

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