BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Nigeria’s debt rises to N44.06trn; Emefiele laments effects of forex scarcity; and other stories

Hello, and welcome to the 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:

· Nigeria’s debt rises further, hits N44.06trn

· Nigeria sold N1.7tn worth of goods to African nations in 9 months – NBS

· Sam Bankman-Fried eyes new business after FTX’s bankruptcy

· Emefiele laments effects of forex scarcity on Nigeria’s economy

Summary:

Nigeria sold goods worth N1.7 trillion to other countries in Africa in the first nine months of this year.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed this in its report on foreign trade statistics obtained by Ripples Nigeria on Saturday.

Nigeria, according to the report, bought goods worth N588 billion from countries on the continent during the period.

The former chief executive officer of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has declared his intention to start a new business to generate funds for investors affected by his firm’s bankruptcy.

READ ALSO:BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Nigeria’s GDP slows to 2.25% in Q3; Agric sector drags despite interventions; other stories

Ripples Nigeria had previously reported that Bankman-Fried filed for bankruptcy following reports that FTX misused investors’ funds.

The investors had invested in cryptocurrency assets promoted by FTX, one of the largest handlers of the digital asset behind Binance.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele, on Saturday, decried the effect of the forex scarcity on the nation’s economy.

Ripples Nigeria reported that Nigeria’s foreign reserves dropped from $39.219 billion to $38.882 billion on August 16.

The CBN pegged the country’s external reserves at $44.42 billion in March.

The Debt Management Office (DMO) has revealed that the total debt stock of Nigeria has increased to N44.06 trillion as of September 2022.

DMO disclosed this in its latest debt report update published on its website on Friday.

The latest amount shows that in three months (July to September) Nigeria increased its debt by N1.2 billion when compared to the N42.84 trillion debt stock in June 2022.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Investors in BUA Cement, Prestige, others make N280bn as market cap rises by 1.6%

Investors in the Nigerian capital market pocketed N280billion at the close of trading on Friday.

This followed the rise in market capitalization by 1.06 percent to close at N26.62 trillion, up from N26.34 trillion posted on Thursday.

Similarly, the All-Share Index was up by 516.79 points to settle at 48,881.93 as against the 48,365.14 recorded the previous day.

Investors parted with N1.14 billion for 100.82 million shares in 2,440 deals on Friday.

This fell short of the N2.98 billion the shareholders splashed on 148.15 million shares in 3,391 deals on Thursday.

On tech, Astron Energy, Synatic, Twitter, Moove, Customcell, BuzzFeed, Seedstars, Uber Eats, Onomotion, Kapu, OneOrder, SideUp, DeHaat were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

A Social commerce startup, Kapu, founded by former Jumia Group executive Vice President, closed a $8M funding to come out of stealth.

Also, Orda, an Nigerian and Kenyan-based restaurant cloud operating system provider, during the week, secured a $3.4 million seed round.

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