BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Oil prices surge over Israel-Hamas conflict; Dangote denies cement price reduction; 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:

• Israel-Hamas Conflict: Crude oil prices surge over fears of supply cuts
• Dangote Cement denies price reduction, says scammers at work
• FG to reduce taxes from 62 to nine —Oyedele
• Nigerian govt targets 2 million bpd output by December

Summary:

Oil prices rallied on Monday after Hamas launched a shock attack on Israel at the weekend, which has sparked fresh concerns about tensions in the Middle East.

The crisis has led to concerns about supplies of crude from the Middle-East region, which is coming after supply worries were already high owing to Saudi Arabia and Russia’s output cuts.

According to analysts, this has also renewed fears about the impact on inflation, with energy costs a key driver of spiking prices.

Management of Dangote Cement Plc has denied reports, in some online platforms (not Ripples Nigera) that it has embarked on sales promotion and has further adjusted its prices.

In response to the misleading report, the Chief Branding and Communications Officer of the Dangote Group, Anthony Chiejina on Tuesday described the reports as mischievous, malicious, and false.

He added that the management had formally notified law enforcement agents to track down, name, and shame the perpetrators of the devious and deceptive information.

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The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, on Tuesday disclosed that the administration of President Bola Tinubu was working to reduce taxes from the current 62 to a maximum of nine, to create a more business-friendly environment in the country.

Oyedele, disclosed this at the 2023 annual conference of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN, in Abuja on Tuesday.

According to him, the step had become imperative, as the current multiplicity of taxes had made tax administration cumbersome and ineffective.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, said on Friday the Federal Government planned to increase crude oil production to two million barrels per day (bdp) and beyond by December.

Lokpobiri, who disclosed this to journalists in Abuja, said the government was working assiduously to achieve the target.

The minister said there was a steady increase in production, adding that it was 1.1 million barrels last month and had subsequently increased to 1.4 million barrels.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Nigerian equity market gains N355bn as trading opens on positive note

Trading in the Nigerian equity market opened on a positive note on Monday, with investors gaining N355bn.

The market capitalisation and the All-Share Index which measures the movement of the market appreciated by 0.97 per cent to N36.865tn and 67,101,33 basis points respectively.

In trading terms, the daily tally of deals improved by 1.30 per cent to 6,911 exchanges. The volume of trade, however dropped and value dipped by 28.18 and 61.23 per cent to 268.66m and N3.46bn respectively.

According to analysts, this week will see mixed sentiments in the market as investors engage in bargain-hunting and adjust their portfolios in anticipation of Q3 corporate earnings reports.

On the tech scene, Amenli, IFC, Lloyd Bank, Dar Venture, Acasia, Rainbow Capital, Thyme Bank, Reboost, Tripplo, Cue, were some of the names that made the headlines this week.

Cue, a South African startup specializing in AI-driven customer service solutions, has secured $500,000 in funding to further its mission of enhancing customer service through state-of-the-art large language models (LLM).
Also, Roboost, an Egyptian delivery management startup, has joined forces with McDonald’s Egypt to introduce greater automation into the fast-food giant’s last-mile delivery operations.

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