BUSINESS ROUNDUP: CBN gives incentive to fight food insecurity; Bitcoin hits new highs; Other stories

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

• CBN boosts fight against food insecurity with incentive
• Nigeria secures $1.3bn for Kano-Niger Railway Project
• Nigeria fails to meet OPEC quota as crude production falls to 1.32mbpd in February
• Bitcoin hits new highs

Summary

In a bid to fight against the food insecurity in the country and cushion the effect of rising prices of food in the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has allocated N100 billion and 2.15 million bags of fertilisers to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Governor of the apex bank, Olayemi Cardoso disclosed this during a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammad Abubakar, and the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday.

While speaking, Cardoso said the apex bank believed that providing support to farmers would help mitigate high food prices currently bedevilling the nation.

The Nigerian government has secured a significant financial boost for a key infrastructure project.

Minister of Transportation, Senator Said Alkali,, on Tuesday, announced that a consortium of financial institutions has agreed to provide $1.3 billion for the ongoing construction of the Kano-Katsina-Jibiya-Maradi Railway Project.

This was according to a statement signed by the minister’s Special Assistant, Public Affairs, Jamilu Ja’afaru, on Tuesday, in Abuja.

For the second consecutive month, Nigeria failed to meet its monthly crude production quota of 1.5mbpd as stipulated by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as the country’s crude oil production dropped to 1.32mbpd from the 1.42mbpd recorded in January 2024.

This represents a decline of 104,000 bpd in the country’s crude production.

This development was announced in the Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) of the oil cartel.

Despite bitcoin achieving another all-time peak on Monday, publicly traded mining stocks on Nasdaq started the day with declines.

Shares linked to companies such as Marathon, Cleanspark, Riot, and others have dropped in value against the U.S. dollar, contrasting with bitcoin’s surge to fresh price milestones.

On Monday, Mar. 11, 2024, BTC reached $72,486, but most bitcoin mining companies’ shares have fallen following a brief recovery last week.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has lamented that no one is ready to invest in the oil sector due to the menace of oil theft while seeking the help of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in tackling the menace.

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPCL, Mele Kyari, made the appeal at an interactive session with the Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, at the NNPC Towers in Abuja on Monday.

In statement by the NNPCL spokesperson, Olufemi Soneye, the company’s helmsman was said to have spoken about the efforts by the company to eradicate corruption from its system, to stem crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism.

ON NGX ROUND UP: JBERGER, GTCO, FBNH, MTNN, FLOURMILL others lift market as Investors gain N581bn

Stocks like JULIUS BERGER, GTCO, FBNH, MTNN, FLOURMILL boosted the equities market as investors made a profit of N581bn at the end of trading on Friday, March 15, 2024 to make it a whole week of bullish trading on the floor of the Nigerian Xchange (NGX).

This is even as the NGX All Share Index (ASI) increased to 105,085.25 from the previous close of 104,056.21at the end of trading on the bourse.

Similarly, market capitalization increased by N581.83bn to close at N59.416 trillion.

ON TECH SCENE: Airbnb, FG, Flagstone, RasMal, Binance, Flutterwave, OpenAI, Spotify, ORA Technologies are some of the names that made the headlines this week.

A prominent technology chief and industry leader, Ben Roberts, has shared update on the state of Africa’s submarine cables, shedding light on the extensive internet downtime experienced by various telecommunication networks and banking applications across the continent.

Also, Airbnb has announced a significant policy change effective April 30th, prohibiting the use of indoor security cameras in its listings to prioritize renters’ privacy.

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