<p>Looking to move abroad in 2017? Six of the top ten countries for a successful expat career are in Europe.</p>
<p>This is according to the latest HSBC Expat Explorer survey, which asked 26,871 people living away from their home country to fill in an online questionnaire about their experiences. </p>
<p>&#8220;According to our survey, Europe is home to some of the best destinations for a successful expat career. Six European countries have made their way into the top 10 and are recognized for their strong work culture, great work-life balance and relatively good job security,&#8221; said Dean Blackburn, head of HSBC Expat, in a press release.</p>
<p>&#8220;The start of the new year is a good time for expats and prospective expats alike to reflect on what they have achieved to date and start to plan the next steps in their international careers. What&#8217;s clear in our survey, is that working abroad offers a wealth of opportunities to suit many different career needs and personal priorities.&#8221;</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s take a look at the top ten and why they are the best destinations for an international career.</p>
<ul>
<li>1st – Switzerland</li>
</ul>
<p>For the second year in a row, Switzerland is the top ranking destination in HSBC&#8217;s survey.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s the best all-round destination for professionals, offering the best earnings prospects along with an excellent work culture.</p>
<p>The survey found 69 percent of expats in Switzerland saw an improvement in their work-life balance, while the average expat income in Switzerland was $188,275, compared to a global average of $97,419. </p>
<ul>
<li>2nd – Germany</li>
</ul>
<p>Germany has risen from third place in 2015&#8217;s rankings to second place. According to HSBC&#8217;s Expat Careers tool, which matches a user&#8217;s career goals with scores from the survey, Germany is the best destination for expats who prioritize learning new skills, job security and career progression.</p>
<ul>
<li>3rd – Sweden</li>
</ul>
<p>Sweden slipped from second place in 2015&#8217;s set of rankings. One of the main appeals for expats is the country&#8217;s work culture; 71 percent of expats said they experience an improvement in their working environment compared to their home country.</p>
<ul>
<li>4th – United Arab Emirates</li>
</ul>
<p>The Middle East can offer expats an attractive employment package, according to the survey. For instance, 56 percent of expats working in the UAE received an accommodation allowance and 75 percent received health benefits.</p>
<ul>
<li>5th – Norway</li>
</ul>
<p>Norway is a newcomer to the Expat Explorer survey&#8217;s top ten and expats in the country are most likely to experience an improvement in their work-life balance, with 87 percent of expats saying their work-life balance improved.</p>
<p>Norway is a good destination choice for professionals who prioritize their work-life balance, work culture and work fulfillment, according to the Expat Careers tool.</p>
<ul>
<li>6th – Singapore</li>
</ul>
<p>Slipping from fifth place in 2015, Singapore scores highly for career development, with 62 percent of expats based in Singapore saying it is a good place for expats to progress their career.</p>
<p>In addition, 53 percent of expats in Singapore said they enjoy greater work fulfillment since making the move.</p>
<ul>
<li>7th – Austria</li>
</ul>
<p>Another newcomer to the top ten, Austria scored highly for its favorable working conditions. The majority of expats in Austria said their work-life balance (71 percent) and work culture (62 percent) was better than in their native country.</p>
<ul>
<li>8th – Hong Kong</li>
</ul>
<p>Like Singapore, Hong Kong is great for career development, with 68 percent of expats agreeing it was a good destination for career progression. However, this comes at a cost with 50 percent of expats saying their work-life balance declined after making the move.</p>
<p>Hong Kong is the best destination for professionals prioritizing career progression, earnings prospects and employment benefits, according to HSBC&#8217;s Expat careers tool.</p>
<ul>
<li>9th – United Kingdom</li>
</ul>
<p>The third newcomer to the top ten, the U.K. climbed nine places from 18th in the 2015 rankings, with 64 percent of expats in the U.K. saying they were better able to pick up new skills compared to their home country, while 62 percent enjoyed better career progression.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s worth pointing out here that the HSBC survey was conducted between March and May 2016, before the U.K. referendum on membership of the European Union, so the views of expats may change in a post-Brexit world.</p>
<ul>
<li>10th – Bahrain</li>
</ul>
<p>Bahrain slipped three places in the rankings from seventh to tenth. Similar to the UAE, expats in the Middle East can receive attractive employment benefits; 65 percent of expats in Bahrain said they received an annual allowance to take trips home.﻿</p>


The world's best destinations for your career

<p class="Bodycopy">In the quiet residential area of North Ridge, a four-acre piece of land is being developed into a 200-unit apartment complex. The development in Accra, Ghana, is part of a trend of new real estate projects springing out from previously abandoned parks.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“This is a very competitive market, there are not many people with a lot of disposable income, so the market for potential buyers is very small with everybody going after the same pot,” says Godwin Ofori, real estate agent at BCD Properties.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Skyrocketing prices for properties is making people desperate to find bargains, says Ofori. Kelvin Nyame, the Co-Founder of meQasa, is hoping to ease their anguish.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">meQasa is an online property listings site connecting buyers to more than 23,000 commercial and residential properties across Ghana.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“There are about 27 million people in Ghana and we look at how many people have the budget to rent the types of houses that are available for rent, or office spaces, then you look at people who have disposable income. We feel that the market is very small, so either you are number one or you are out of the game and to be number one you need to have three times the content that your competitors have,” says Nyame.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Nyame believes content is king.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“In the listings, we are the highest right now, and traffic wise we have closed the gap with our competitors. We are doing about 40,000 serious seekers with over 290,000 page views per month. More than half of the 40,000 are converting and what that means is that they are sending emails to our agents and calling our agents to enquire about our properties and we hope to grow this number by up to 50,000 to 60,000 by December,” he says.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Nyame came up with the idea, along with Rashad Seini and Kofi Amuasi, at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST).</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“So the whole idea of MEST is to learn software and online business. The program is structured such that you do capstone projects and in the capstone projects you form teams with everybody. The idea is that by your final capstone project you will want to develop your idea into a business and meQasa was one of the last two projects we were thinking of making into a business. After analysing our expertise and our skill set we decided to go for meQasa.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Nyame and his team had to adopt a lean strategy from the start.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“The market is very small but there were a lot of big players and we just had $90,000 seed investment from MEST to operate with for two years. So if you do the maths, you can only spend about $3,000 per month and this includes employee salaries, office space, marketing and product development, so we were very limited and everyone was after the same customers, so it was very tough.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">There is, however, a light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of 2015, meQasa secured a much-needed investment of $500,000 from Frontier Digital Ventures, a global venture capital firm headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Nyame is using that cash injection to streamline the business.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“We started monetizing two months ago and we have what we call subscription for developers, so every developer has a fee they pay for a number of months with different bundles. We also have banner ads and also sell our newsletter. For agents, we have products that are customized as well and by 2017 there will be space for every agent that wants to list on the site.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">In just three years, meQasa gained a significant percentage of the property listings business, according to Nyame.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“The early days were tough. We did a lot of research but we made some assumptions. We tried models. As a business you want to look at how you can make money and some of the models didn’t work. One of the models was that we recruited agents who we called meQasa real estate agents. So basically we would give them some kind of resources and an ID card so they know that they work for us but they also have their own real estate business. The idea was to send them leads so that when they close the deal we share the commission but that didn’t work.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“We also hired a meQasa agent relationship manager to manage the agents, which also didn’t work. We made a lot of mistakes by also looking at the US market and what will work over there, but again that is a very advanced market so it wouldn’t work here. Now we are looking more at emerging markets in Southeast Asia, who are not too far from us in terms of developments but they managed to find solutions.”</p>
<p>The company plans to expand to other African countries and Nyame hopes he’ll soon be the top player in the continent’s property game.  ﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Changing how people buy and sell property in Ghana

<p>Talks to ease Congo President Joseph Kabila out of power next year and quell protests over him overstaying his mandate are hanging by a thread, an opposition leader said ahead of the resumption of the negotiations on Friday.</p>
<p>Only last week the sides appeared near a historic deal that could have paved the way for the first peaceful transfer of power through a democratic election since the country gained independence in 1960.</p>
<p>However, the talks hit a stumbling block over whether a new prime minister for Democratic Republic of Congo will come from the main opposition bloc and on the composition of the electoral commission, which the opposition accuses of pro-government bias.</p>
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<p>&#8220;At this stage, we are closer to a rupture than to a solution,&#8221; opposition leader Félix Tshisekedi said in a tweet. Other parties and mediators made no comment.</p>
<p>The talks between the ruling coalition and opposition parties organised by the Catholic church are set to resume for a make-or-break day at the headquarters of the conference of Catholic bishops in the capital Kinshasa.</p>
<p>Delegates said bishops acting as mediators met Kabila and veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi on Thursday.</p>
<p>Under the deal, Kabila would agree not to attempt to change the constitution to participate in elections to be held next year. His two-term mandate ended on Dec. 19 but authorities have effectively extended it until 2018.</p>
<p>That would have represented a significant turnaround given that security forces killed around 40 people last week for protesting the tenure of a leader who came to power in 2001 when his father Laurent was assassinated.</p>
<p>The opposition also wants authorities to drop charges against some of its leaders, arguing that the prosecutions are political.</p>
<p>A political deal could boost pro-democracy activists in other countries, given Congo&#8217;s size and sway on the continent.</p>
<p>But if the talks break down it could lead to more violent demonstrations. Police spokesman Colonel Pierre Mwanamputu said security was being stepped up for the New Year celebrations and to guard against unrest.</p>
<p>Millions died of starvation and disease in a war in Congo between 1996 and 2003 that sucked in a host of other African nations.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Congo opposition leader says talks on political deal faltering

<p>When investing and saving, performance and diversification aren’t the only factors to monitor. It’s also critical to understand how costs &#8212; which are a fact of life, and part and parcel of the process of investment – fit into the picture.</p>
<p>All investment vehicles have costs, whether you buy shares directly or invest in a unit trust or structured entity like a Retirement Annuity. Even an investment in physical property has costs, such as once-off transfer duties, payments to a managing agent or monthly levies.</p>
<p>Generally, within the financial services industry, fees on investments are payable to three parties:</p>
<ul>
<li>Platform fee (or administration fee)</li>
<li>Asset Management Fee</li>
<li>Financial Adviser Fee</li>
</ul>
<p>Some of these fees will be paid upfront, while others will be paid for the duration of the investment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Platform Fees</strong></p>
<p>You may be liable for a platform fee if you’re accessing a savings product/fund on a linked investment service provider (LISP).</p>
<p>A LISP is defined by the <a href="http://asisa.org.za/en/transformation-education/consumer-education/linked-investment-service-providers">Association for Saving and Investment in SA</a> as a “company that enables you to invest in a wide range of collective investment schemes, such as unit trust funds, via one source”. In other words, you might use Company A (a LISP) to purchase a unit trust from Investment Company B and a unit trust from Company C, or you might buy a retirement product from Company A that includes unit trusts from Company B and Company C. For example, Discovery Invest is a LISP – and Discovery Invest clients are able to invest with various fund managers via the Discovery Invest platform.</p>
<p>The benefit of using a LISP is that it provides one point of contact for the consumer, while providing access to a range of investment options. Also, as Asisa points out, another advantage of investing via a LISP is that the “collective investment scheme fees are often negotiated down significantly by the Lisp and the saving passed on to investors”.</p>
<p>As a rule, the fees charged by a LISP for the use of the platform are low but not insignificant. They’re also often forgotten as investors tend to only focus on the fees related to the fund. Most LISPs now charge ongoing fees rather than an upfront fee, although there are exceptions to this rule.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Asset Management Fees/Fund Manager Fees</strong></p>
<p>Also known as the fund-manager fee or service fee, this is the charge levied by an investment manager for managing an investment fund.  This fee can be a fixed fee, or performance-based (in other words, rewarding a manager for outperforming a pre-determined benchmark), or a combination of the two.</p>
<p>The asset manager fee is typically expressed as a percentage charged annually, and covers the costs of running the unit trust. However, there are more costs related to the management of an investment fund, and in order to make these clearer to investors, these are now stated as part of the Total Expense Ratio (TER), and will be published on fund fact sheets.</p>
<p>Like the platform fees, asset management fees are generally ongoing rather than upfront, although there are exceptions to this.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Financial Adviser Fees</strong></p>
<p>These are the fees paid to financial advisers for advice – which will either be upfront or ongoing. Fees paid to a financial adviser are effectively for professional services rendered, in the same way that any other profession charges for advice. Warren Ingram, the executive director at Galileo Capital, says there are typically three ways that advisors charge clients.</p>
<p>The traditional model is where “advisers charge a percentage of assets advice”. In structured savings products, this is disclosed in detail on the application forms. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the model where investors pay advisors per consultation (effectively a rate per hour). And halfway between the two is the situation where the advisor is paid to develop an overall investment and retirement savings plan for a client, which the client then implements themselves.</p>
<p>Ingram says that in his experience, many of those who elect to follow this last option tend to return 6-18 months later and ask their advisor to take over the management of their investments. “There are many reasons for this,” he says, “sometimes investors realise just how intimidating and demanding this work is. Or there’s a realisation that they’re not suited to being this diligent.”</p>
<p>“There’s a considerable benefit of paying an advisor when you know the plan will be implemented.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Comparing fees</strong></p>
<p>When comparing costs, it’s important to compare apples with apples. Thankfully, this is becoming easier. For most savings products (like unit trusts), the costs are typically disclosed as a total expense ratio (or TER), as mentioned previously. This <a href="http://www.asisa.org.za/en/transformation-education/consumer-education/collective-investment-schemes/facts-on-collective-investment-portfolios/total-expense-ratio">figure</a> – an industry standard, and one that is published on fund fact sheets – includes expenses such as:</p>
<p>• Management fees (including performance fees);</p>
<p>• Fixed operating costs (such as audit fees and bank charges); and</p>
<p>• Value Added Taxes</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As part of efforts to simplify disclosure as part of the Financial Service Board’s Retail Distribution Review and to help consumers compare like for like, fund and product providers will soon start publishing a standard “Effective Annual Cost” or EAC, developed with the Association of Savings and Investment South Africa (Asisa). This will include management fees (currently the base of the TER), advice charges, administration charges, as well as any other charges (including termination fees).</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Making your money work</strong></p>
<p>It may be easy to see fees as a “necessary evil”, but remember that your money will still be working harder when it’s being actively invested. If you decide to keep your money under a mattress or even in a cash account, the fees will certainly be lower, but the returns will definitely be lower as well.</p>
<p>However, Ingram does suggest reassessing the fees you’re paying regularly – keep a tab on these in the same way you would your car or household insurance premiums – and make sure the fees you’re paying are comparable to the market.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>For more information on investing for retirement, speak to your financial adviser.</em></p>
<p><em>This article is part of an investment series by Discovery Invest. ﻿</em></p>


What you need to know when you’re investing

<p>A man purporting to be the leader of Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, denied the jihadist group has been pushed out of its stronghold in the Sambisa forest.</p>
<p>President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday said Boko Haram&#8217;s last enclave in the forest, a former game reserve in northeast Nigeria, had been captured in the &#8220;final crushing&#8221; of the group.</p>
<p>Reuters has been unable to independently verify that the area was captured.</p>
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<p>&#8220;We are safe. We have not been flushed out of anywhere,&#8221;</p>
<p>the man identifying himself as Shekau said in a video seen by Reuters on Thursday.</p>
<p>&#8220;If you indeed crushed us, how can you see me like this? How many times have you killed us in your bogus death?&#8221; he added in the 25-minute video during which he spoke in the Hausa language and Arabic.</p>
<p>Nigeria&#8217;s military has in recent years said it has killed or wounded Shekau on multiple occasions.</p>
<p>Such statements have often swiftly been followed by video denials by someone who says he is Shekau, but poor footage makes it hard to confirm if the person is the same man as in previous videos.</p>
<p>A military spokesman, in a text message, said a comment would be issued in due course. The presidency declined to comment.</p>
<p>Boko Haram has killed about 15,000 people and displaced more than 2 million in a seven-year insurgency aimed at creating a state adhering to strict Islamic laws in the northeast of Africa&#8217;s most populous nation.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Man claiming to be Boko Haram leader denies Sambisa defeat

<p>The retail price of petrol in South Africa will rise by 4 percent from Jan. 4, while the price of wholesale diesel will increase by 3.5 percent, the energy department said on Thursday.</p>
<p>The price of 93 octane petrol will be 50 cents higher at 13.09 rand per litre, with the 95 octane also up 48 cents to 13.33 rand per litre in the country&#8217;s commercial hub of Gauteng province, while diesel will increase by 39 cents to 11.43 rand per litre, the department said in a statement.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


South Africa's petrol price to rise by 4 percent next week

<p>General Cable Corp, a Kentucky-based wire manufacturer, agreed to pay a $20 million penalty to resolve allegations that it had bribed officials in Angola, Bangladesh and China, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.</p>
<p>The company admitted its executives knew outside agents bribed officials in order to win business, according to the agreement signed with the U.S. Justice Department. The company also agreed to surrender $51 million in profits it made from the schemes.</p>
<p>The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.﻿</p>
<p>The Justice Department said it agreed to a more lenient penalty with General Cable because the company voluntarily came forward and disclosed the misconduct to authorities.</p>
<p>Over the past year, the Justice Department has encouraged companies to come forward about bribery allegations by offering lighter penalties if they fully cooperate.</p>
<p>General Cable “voluntarily self-disclosed this misconduct to the government, fully cooperated and remediated,&#8221; said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. “This resolution demonstrates the very real upside to coming in and cooperating with federal prosecutors and investigators.”﻿</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>


General Cable to pay $20 mn to settle bribery charges

<p class="Bodycopy">They call them zama zamas which means ‘those who try their luck’. Wearing his traditional Zulu earrings, looking hirsute with whiskers on his face, this is Dumisani Ngcamu, otherwise known as Ntshebe – ‘the bearded man’. He is an illegal miner and has been risking his life for eight years trying to scrape a handful of gold dust underground to support his eight kids. He works in abandoned mineshafts around Johannesburg, a city in South Africa built on gold.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“You see, here in Johannesburg, gold is everywhere but people don’t know that. Sometimes you don’t have to go deep, it’s closer than you think,” says Ngcamu.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">A trip to Johannesburg from his village Nquthu, in the KwaZulu-Natal province, looking for greener pastures, led Ngcamu to illegal mining even though he never worked in a mine. Immigrants from neighboring Zimbabwe, the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mozambique introduced Ngcamu to this industry as a marketer of syndicates.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“I was earning R30 ($2.20) a day, I did not mind how small it was because I had food on my plate. I knew this was a serious job when I got arrested, but luckily for me I had learned every process of mining. I knew where to find gold,” says Ngcamu.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">After he was released he went on his own and started mining in built-up areas.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“I mined within near distances, I reached barriers where you would find houses and firms, I then realized I could make more money in abandoned mines. That’s when I started working with other people,” says Ngcamu.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">It all revolves around a shanty town called Denver, near Johannesburg, where most of the residents are from the KwaZulu-Natal. Here, shacks and shady corners are full of idle youth who drink to drown their sorrows and clusters of people playing chess and cooking meat. The majority of people in this area are the poorest of the poor and try to make a living through illegal mining and crime.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“Whenever government officials wanted a gunman, they knew Denver was the perfect place. R5,000 ($370) was enough for criminals here, but today you won’t find a single criminal because everyone is involved in mining,” says Ngcamu.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“You would hear that a policeman has been shot at Denver hostel on a daily basis, no police officer would enter this place back in those days, but today we are able to communicate with them.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">The troubles on the surface match the problems underground. There’s fighting between factions and theft among rival groups of illegal miners.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“They used to rob our stuff. When you’re down there you need to act like an animal. Things I encounter down there are devastating. I saw someone being hit with a hammer on the head; if you are a handsome young man, without a beard like mine [laughs], they would rape you and kill you. I was lucky not to get caught. Shootings and a person being lost is common in there.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Ngcamu survived a horror encounter with a rival faction.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“You even have slaves. They catch you, tie you up like you a goat, hold you hostage and make you work for days. Your job would be to work and you deliver the gold dust up until the exit point. If you say you tired, they kill you, and luckily I managed to escape,” he says, while chuckling.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">He says foreigners are most prone to such torture.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“When I look at this country, foreigners are not seen as humans, they are seen as animals. Those [foreigners] who I mined with were mostly victims of such things. If it is a group of mixed nationals, then things will get sour.” </p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Such experiences led Ngcamu to appoint people to act as security guards who would look out for them while they dig. He knew where to find them.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“You know who is a criminal in your area so we appointed criminals from Denver. We told them the money they will make with us is better than what they would make from crime.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“Now we are free, because we know people are looking out for us. Everyone is benefiting. Police are happy because there is no crime,” he says.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Illegal miners even pay the guards with a plate of gold dust after they have returned. As it is a community business, women and children are also involved. Women are mostly employed in the manufacturing of the gold. They are tasked to use a piece of equipment called a phenduka – a hand driven cylinder.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Iron balls and water are added inside the perforated phenduka stand. After spinning, the water is sifted into plastic buckets until liquid mercury is visible when being strained. The end process is burning the liquid mercury until it becomes solid gold, then it goes to the market.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">David van Wyk, a mining analyst who has studied illegal miners for decades as a researcher for the Bench Marks Foundation, knows the lives, challenges and syndicates of zama zamas. You’d be forgiven if you mistook him for Albert Einstein with his vast knowledge.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“In Africa, before colonialism, people did small-scale mining. Traditional African mining was small scale artisanal mining all over Africa. You still find it in Burkina Faso, it also happened around Great Zimbabwe. If we want a situation that is not so disorderly, that is no so violent and unsafe, we need to pass regulations for small-scale mining and allow it to take place,” he says.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">According to Van Wyk, small-scale mining started 200 years ago, before big companies started operating, but it is seen as a threat to the weakening South African mining industry.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“As we have a downward curve in the availability of gold mining, we have an upward curve in small-scale mining.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“Economically their costs are very low, they do not use a lot of water they do not use a lot of electricity, they don’t use a lot of technology,” says Van Wyk.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">He believes the reason there is factional fighting is because of the syndicates the zama zamas work for. Syndicates struck a deal with the zama zamas to buy gold from them; they then sell the gold to the formal economy. They provide zama zamas with food and water and make deductions when workers, like Ngcamu, return from digging. Van Wyk, though, says some of the syndicates are against illegal mining.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“My allegation against the Chamber of Mines, who are always making a noise about zama zamas, is that their people are involved. My second problem with the Chamber of Mines is that they represent monopoly mining, that’s why they are very much against zama zamas.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“In South Africa, if you are black and you shoot an animal, you are a poacher, but if you are white and shoot an animal you are a trophy hunter; same applies to mining.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">The Chamber of Mines of South Africa refutes the claims.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“It is simply a mischievous claim. As is the case in most countries around the world, mineral resources in South Africa belong to the state and may only be mined by licensed operators. It doesn’t matter whether it is small-scale, medium-scale or large-scale mining, the point is, it needs to be regulated,” says Charmane Russell, spokesperson of the Chamber of Mines.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“If we formalize zama zamas and actually create laws and regulations and organize them into cooperatives, then there can be training in mine health and safety for these guys,” says Van Wyk.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Mines Rescue Services has been rescuing trapped illegal miners for the past 92 years.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“The challenges we face is that there are no maps, no mine plans. We do not know where to go. We work in extremely dangerous conditions. That’s why we have to work with illegal miners to guide us to a place where these guys are trapped,” says Christo de Klerk, CEO of Mines Rescue Services.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">De Klerk and his crew use specialized equipment to roam underground and search for illegal miners. He believes the conditions illegal miners face is inhumane.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“If you look at the amount of the bodies we have recovered, a lot of those bodies were killed during the faction fighting; these people are armed and very dangerous.”</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“Authorities have to get together to stop them, we have to stop the inflow of illegal immigrants, we have to try and close all these holes, the prosecution of these people is important but the main thing is that the syndicates who buy gold and sell the gold must be infiltrated and stopped,” says De Klerk.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Ngcamu disagrees.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“Government needs to rethink things; they shouldn’t listen to those who say shafts should be closed because it is risky. We know it is risky; they should stop acting act like they are in sympathy with our lives when they just want to prevent us from getting small fortunes. We’re hungry, they should let us eat,” says an irate Ngcamu.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Not far from Denver, Ngcamu takes us to a place where they first started mining. It seemed like a long day at work for the security guards who were looking out for the illegal miners. Not far away is a metals factory. Pointing towards it, Ngcamu has a story to tell.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“You see when they started operating here, they would call the police on a daily basis to come and arrest us for mining next to their company. Luckily for us, the officers were black, they were our brothers, and they understood us. Criminals used to steal their metals, but now it has all stopped. They do their business we do ours, it’s just a mutual agreement,” he says.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">After some explanation and pleading, one of the security guards who didn’t want to be identified agrees to speak and sugarcoats how they deal with criminals.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“We tell them what they’re doing is not right and should never repeat it. A lot of people know what gold looks like so they would be taking chances to undermine us,” he chuckles.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“You see, if government closes these mines that would mean he has killed all of these guards and their families. That would make government responsible for deaths of these people,” says Ngcamu.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">The whole country was in shock as scores of miners were rescued in an abandoned mine in Langlaagte, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Four dead bodies were recovered in a day that proved to be the last throw of the dice for illegal mining, events there brought about a lot of public debate on how to stop it.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“What happened in Laanglagte doesn’t deter me; whenever you enter a certain job you will face challenges. Even in firms, you can die reading a newspaper; you can die even though you occupy a top position. So what happened to our brothers won’t make us cry, to our brothers’ families we send our condolences but we expect anything down there. When we go down we pray, when we return we pray,” says an unapologetic Ngcamu.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">The mine in Laanglagte is abandoned by Central Rand Gold, leaving opportunities for Ngcamu and his crew to make a living. Van Wyk believes Central Rand Gold, listed on the in the London Stock Exchange, should never have received a mining licence in the first place. The mineshaft is situated at George Harrison Park which has been a national monument since 1946. Next to the park is the 99-year-old school, TC Esterhuysen Primary School, with its football pitch 10 meters from the mine pit.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">“The mine did not have water, so they used the school’s water, which is illegal as well. When we talk about illegal mining, we always blame zama zamas, but people don’t know how many big monopoly mining operations, listed on the London Stock Exchange, that are operating illegally and flaunting the laws of this country,” says Van Wyk.</p>
<p class="Bodycopy">Ngcamu says nothing will stop them from mining.</p>
<p>“If I stop, what will I say to my two kids at university? People need to be fed, for me stopping is not an option.”  ﻿</p>
<p><em>This article first appeared in Forbes Woman Africa and is republished with its permission. Subscribe today by contacting Shanna Jacobsen <a href="mailto:Shanna.Jacobsen@abn360.com">Shanna.Jacobsen@abn360.com﻿</a>﻿</em>﻿</p>


Risking their lives in abandoned mineshafts

<p>Nigeria&#8217;s central bank sold about $1 billion on the forward market last week to clear a backlog of dollar obligations in selected sectors, traders said on Thursday, its largest special auction since a currency peg was removed in June.</p>
<p>Outstanding dollar demand was about $4 billion before June, when the 16-month-old peg was removed. Efforts to cut dollar demand have been largely unsuccessful due to low oil prices.</p>
<p>Crude sales account for about 90 percent of Nigeria&#8217;s foreign exchange earnings.</p>
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<p>Traders said the central bank told banks to prioritise airlines, manufacturing firms, petroleum products importers and agriculture sectors, the sectors worst hit by the dollar shortage, in the auction.</p>
<p>&#8220;The central bank sold $1 billion at last week&#8217;s special forex auction and directed banks to issue fresh letters of credit to reflect the amount sold in favour of the affected sectors,&#8221; a senior currency trader told Reuters.</p>
<p>Traders said the central bank sold 30-day and 60-day forwards at the auction.</p>
<p>On Dec. 19, the central bank instructed commercial lenders to submit their backlog of dollar demand from fuel importers, airlines, raw materials and machinery for manufacturing firms and agricultural chemicals for the special forex intervention.</p>
<p>Nigeria is in its first recession for 25 years, caused by the oil price drop which has cut the supply of dollars needed to fund imports. Attacks by militants on pipelines in the Niger Delta since January have cut crude output, further reducing dollar inflows.</p>
<p>The dollar shortage in the OPEC member, whose crude sales make up two thirds of government revenue, has caused many companies to halt operations and lay off workers, compounding the economic crisis.</p>
<p>Some foreign airlines have closed down or reduced their operations over an inability to repatriate the proceeds of their earnings due to the dollar shortage.</p>
<p>An acute shortage of jet oil in the last few months &#8211; caused by the inability of importers to secure the dollars needed to buy the fuel &#8211; has led to many operators refuelling in neighbouring countries.</p>
<p>Flight cancellations by local airlines have become commonplace as a result of the shortages.</p>
<p>The naira was trading at about 305.25 to the dollar on the interbank market on Thursday and was quoted at 490 a dollar on the unofficial market.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Nigeria sells $1 bln to help clear backlog in dollar

<p>When planning for retirement, many people establish how much they need to have saved when they retire so that they are able to live off the interest. In theory this sounds like a wise decision – investing your capital so that it creates interest, and then living off this interest while not touching the capital amount.</p>
<p>However, living off a set amount of interest won’t allow you to maintain a constant standard of living for your full period of retirement. This is because inflation will affect the buying power of your capital amountandthe interest earned on your capital amount.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Effects of inflation</strong></p>
<p>Warren Ingram, Executive Director at Galileo Capital, says he is frequently exposed to cases of retirees who live off their investments’ interest. “This is not viable,” he says, “because interest has no ability to track inflation.” Over long periods of time, using the local Short-term Fixed Interest Composite Index (STeFI) as a benchmark, he says you’ll see a real return of 1%, before tax. (“Real return” is the annual return of an investment, adjusted for changes in prices due to inflation or other external effects.) “Effectively, you’re standing still,” Ingram points out.</p>
<p>As an example, with an interest-focused investment of R1 million, generating a return of 6.7% over the last 12 months will mean a return of R67 000 for the year. But, consumer price inflation is at 6.3% during that same period. Living off the interest means your capital amount will remain relatively fixed. However, because inflation erodes the value of your R1 million, you will be going backwards because the capital amount (and the interest it produces) is worth less and less over time. At an average inflation rate of 5% a year, your R1 million will halve in purchasing power in less than 15 years. And the interest earned on this money will also reduce in purchasing power.﻿</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/media/19289929/1_600x574.jpg"  width="600"  height="574" alt="1"/>﻿</p>
<p><strong>Investing to draw an income</strong></p>
<p>Considering the above, a fundamental aim of investing for an income in retirement should be to provide an income that keeps pace with (or outperforms) inflation. There are various ways to do this.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Linked annuity</strong></p>
<p>“I would caution against having 100% of your capital in interest-bearing (cash only) investments because it will decline in real terms over time,” says Ingram. By comparison, he says that a classic balanced portfolio accessible through a linked annuity with a linked investment service provider, invested two-thirds in equities with the remainder in property, bonds and cash, will generate a real return of 4% to 5% a year over the long term, based on historic long-term averages. With a balanced portfolio, your income is much more likely to outperform inflation, which means you could comfortably draw down a portion of these returns while your capital continues to grow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Life annuities</strong></p>
<p>A life annuity, also known as a compulsory annuity, is one way of ensuring regular and predictable income during retirement. This annuity factors in your life expectancy when you purchase it, and as such has “obvious merit if you are retiring relatively young, and have a history of longevity in your family,” points out Ingram. This would be because life expectancies are actuarial averages, and you would be on the right side of that equation. The one downside of annuities is the “high correlation between the income rates you get and the interest rate environment when you buy them.”</p>
<p>Many people also look to property as an answer to the income problem because this investment provides an income in the form of rent, which tends to be adjusted for inflation. But Ingram argues that, unless you have a large, diversified portfolio of investment properties, he “would always look for this exposure via listed property” because it offers better diversification.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Determining your drawdown</strong></p>
<p>Once you’ve retired, the amount of money you withdraw from your savings on a monthly or annual basis  – your “rawdown amount – is critical. If your drawdown is too large, you risk reducing your capital amount. Also, your drawdown needs to keep pace with inflation, so it will need to increase over time.</p>
<p>“You definitely require professional advice from a financial adviser, even if it’s just to do this calculation,” says Ingram.</p>
<p>With a drawdown of “3% or less per year, you can be reasonably sure you won’t draw down on your capital in nominal or in real terms,” says Ingram. “At a drawdown of 6% or 7%, it’s very possible that over time you will start to erode your capital.”</p>
<p>In some ways, this corroborates the so-called <a href="https://www.discovery.co.za/portal/individual/invest-news-mar16-retirement-planning">4% rule</a>, but the shortcomings with a one-size-fits-all type number like this is that the answer will necessarily be different for each individual. The difference between 3% and 5% seems small, but has massive consequences over time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>For more information on investing for retirement, speak to your financial adviser.</em></p>
<p><em>This article is part of an investment series by Discovery Invest. ﻿</em></p>
<p> </p>


Can I and should I live off my investments’ interest?

<p>Boko Haram fighters fleeing an attack on their base last week may have used some of the girls kidnapped in 2014 from northeast Nigeria&#8217;s Chibok as human shields to prevent being fired upon by fighter jets, a military commander said on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Major General Lucky Irabor, theatre commander of Nigeria&#8217;s military campaign against the group, showed a news conference aerial footage he said was filmed during the operation in the Sambisa forest that showed Boko Haram fighters moving with women and children.</p>
<p>&#8220;The haggard fighters were just using them as a shield,&#8221; Irabor told reporters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. &#8220;That is why we did not engage them from the air.&#8221;</p>
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<p>&#8220;We had always believed and hoped that going into the Sambisa would afford us the opportunity to get the remaining Chibok girls. What we can&#8217;t tell is whether those women we can see were the Chibok girls,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Boko Haram militants kidnapped more than 200 girls from their school dormitories in the town of Chibok in April 2014. The first of the girls to be found said most of them were being held in the Sambisa forest, where she was discovered in May.</p>
<p>The group has kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children during its seven-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria, some of whom may also be held in the forest.</p>
<p>The abduction of the Chibok girls, 21 of whom were released in October, brought worldwide notoriety.</p>
<p>President Muhammadu Buhari said on Saturday the Islamist militants&#8217; last enclave in the forest, the vast former game reserve in northeast Nigeria that was their stronghold, had been captured.</p>
<p>Reuters has been unable to independently verify that the area has been captured, but the comments from the general were the first reference by a military official to the suspected whereabouts of the girls since Buhari&#8217;s announcement.</p>
<p>The president said the capture of Camp Zero in the forest marked the &#8220;final crushing of Boko Haram&#8221; but security analysts say the group&#8217;s ability to carry out attacks in neighbouring Niger, Cameroon and Chad suggests it has multiple bases.</p>
<p>They also say the group split this year with one faction led by Abubakar Shekau operating from the Sambisa forest and the other, allied to Islamic State and led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, based in the Lake Chad region.</p>
<p>Irabor said the military was pursuing those who fled, adding that 1,240 people suspected of being militants, their relatives or sympathisers had been arrested between Dec. 21 and 28.</p>
<p>Boko Haram has killed 15,000 people and displaced more than 2 million during its insurgency. It controlled an area the size of Belgium in early 2015 but has been pushed back by troops from Nigeria and neighbouring countries since then.</p>
<p>Separately, dozens of Boko Haram fighters have given themselves up to authorities in southern Niger, the interior minister there said.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Boko Haram may have used Chibok girls as shields during attack

<p>Zambia&#8217;s President Edgar Lungu ordered the air force on Wednesday to join other government agencies in an emergency operation to contain the spread of pests that have invaded maize fields in many parts of the country.</p>
<p>The armyworms, which feast on young maize plants and are capable of wiping out entire fields, have been spotted in about six of Zambia&#8217;s 10 provinces, Agriculture Permanent Secretary Julius Shawa said.</p>
<p>On Wednesday the Zambia Air Force began airlifting pesticides to the four worst affected provinces and will team up with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) in responding to the crisis, presidential spokesman Amos Chanda said in a statement.</p>
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<p>The air force will not carry out aerial spraying of the insecticide, however.</p>
<p>Zambia&#8217;s maize production rose to 2.87 million tonnes in the 2015/2016 crop season from 2.60 million tonnes the previous season due to better than anticipated rainfall and early delivery of fertilizer and seed to farmers.</p>
<p>&#8220;The president is concerned that if the outbreak of the worms is not controlled speedily, the crop yield for 2016/2017 may be negatively affected,&#8221; Chanda said.</p>
<p>The DMMU and the Ministry of Agriculture will conduct random checks starting on Thursday to ensure the emergency spraying operation was going well, Chanda said.﻿</p>


Zambia president orders air force to help fight maize pest

<p>A court in Democratic Republic of Congo sentenced a political opposition leader to five years in prison on Wednesday, a human rights advocate said, a judgment that risks imperiling multi-party talks meant to organise a presidential election next year.</p>
<p>The court found Franck Diongo, president of the opposition MLP party, guilty of illegally detaining three soldiers during violent protests last week in the capital Kinshasa that killed dozens, said Georges Kapiamba, a lawyer and human rights advocate who attended the trial.</p>
<p>Kapiamba told Reuters that Diongo was not able to defend himself because of failing health and called the decision &#8220;totally political&#8221;. The government has denied that the prosecution is politically motivated.</p>
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<p>The verdict comes as representatives of President Joseph Kabila&#8217;s ruling coalition and the country&#8217;s main opposition bloc say they are near an accord under which Kabila would step down by the end of 2017 after an election to choose his successor.</p>
<p>The election was meant to take place last month but the government postponed it until at least April 2018, citing delays registering millions of voters. The opposition accuses Kabila of trying to cling to power &#8211; a charge he denies.</p>
<p>Dozens of opposition politicians and anti-Kabila activists have been arrested in the past year on what rights groups say are politically motivated charges and the opposition has called for some of those charges to be dropped as a show of good faith.</p>
<p>Earlier in the day, Felix Tshisekedi, the leader of the opposition delegation at the talks, said negotiations could break down over prosecutions against Diongo and other opposition leaders.</p>
<p>&#8220;We go from one provocation to the next,&#8221; Tshisekedi said in an interview broadcast on local news site actualite.cd. &#8220;If this continues, we won&#8217;t be able to sign an accord.&#8221;</p>
<p>Other hold-ups in the negotiations include the main opposition bloc&#8217;s insistence that one of its members be named prime minister and that the country&#8217;s electoral commission be reconstituted.</p>
<p>Congo&#8217;s Catholic bishops conference, which is mediating the talks, has said it hopes a deal will be signed on Friday. Western and African powers fear failure to reach a compromise could lead to a repeat of the wars between 1996 and 2003 in eastern Congo that killed millions, most from hunger and disease.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Congo opposition leader sentenced to five years in prison

<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the sale of $850 million in bonds issued by Mozambique by Credit Suisse, Russia&#8217;s VTB Group and BNP Paribas, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The southern African nation in October said its debt was unsustainable and the International Monetary Fund suspended assistance to Mozambique when evidence of $2 billion in secret loans emerged.</p>
<p>The bonds were sold in 2013 to finance a Mozambican state-owned firm&#8217;s plans to develop tuna fishing in the impoverished nation, but the government later said it had also bought military equipment with the funds.</p>
<p>The SEC in November asked bondholders for documents provided by Credit Suisse, VTB and BNP Paribas during the sale of the bonds, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a letter sent to bondholders.</p>
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<p>The letter also asked investors to share with the SEC all communications with the banks related to the bonds.</p>
<p>The SEC declined to comment to both the WSJ and Reuters. Mozambique&#8217;s Ministry of Finance did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.</p>
<p>No one was immediately available to comment at BNP Paribas or Credit Suisse about the U.S. investigation.</p>
<p>Financial watchdogs from Switzerland and Britain are also looking into Credit Suisse&#8217;s and VTB&#8217;s involvement.</p>
<p>There was no immediate comment from VTB on Wednesday but in June, when the Swiss and British authorities became involved, VTB said it had been open and transparent with the regulator on the Mozambique transaction. Credit Suisse declined comment then.</p>
<p>Mozambique&#8217;s state news agency said on Wednesday the country would pay government employees only half their annual bonus.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


SEC investigates banks that sold Mozambique's tuna bond

<p>Angola will achieve its inflation and exchange rate targets in 2017, the southern African nation&#8217;s central bank governor said on state radio on Wednesday.</p>
<p>&#8220;&#8230; the indicators show that we are going to have a better time next year, that we will have a better stability and we will be able to achieve the objectives of the inflation rate, the exchange rate &#8230;,&#8221; Valter da Silva said on Radio National de Angola.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Central bank governor says Angola to achieve inflation targets in 2017

<p>Tencent&#8217;s M&amp;A could hit new levels in 2017. The $233 billion Chinese tech giant will probably follow its purchase of mobile-games maker Supercell with similar-sized deals abroad. A bolder move would be buying U.S. heavyweight Activision Blizzard.</p>
<p>As well as operating WeChat, the ubiquitous chat app, Tencent is dominant in gaming at home, accounting for half of industry revenue. But it is a weakling overseas, with many games lacking global appeal: data tracker Newzoo estimates just 15 percent of gaming revenue came from outside of Asia in 2015. If Tencent is truly ambitious about long-term growth, it will need to tap gamers abroad.</p>
<p>    So far, Tencent has taken stakes in small outfits from South Korea&#8217;s CJ Games to Glu Mobile in San Francisco. In June it stepped things up by agreeing to buy Supercell, the Finnish group behind &#8220;Clash of Clans&#8221;, in an $8.6 billion deal.</p>
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<p>    Similar buys will surely follow. Japanese-listed Nexon, with a $6 billion market value, smaller counterpart GungHo, or South Korea&#8217;s NC Soft could be prime targets: all three have games that are already popular in the region, and publish these in China through Tencent.</p>
<p>    The real prize would be the $27 billion Activision Blizzard. The U.S. gaming group&#8217;s stable runs from &#8220;Call of Duty&#8221;, the best-selling military videogame, to mobile hit &#8220;Candy Crush&#8221;. Its newest release, &#8220;Overwatch&#8221;, is quickly becoming a serious contender to Tencent&#8217;s &#8220;League of Legends&#8221;.</p>
<p>    Tencent already owns 5 percent of Activision. The remainder, with a 30 percent takeover premium to November&#8217;s volume-weighted average stock price, would cost just under $39 billion, including assumed debt. If Tencent borrowed the whole amount, that would require debt of about 2.7 times combined EBITDA, which should hit $14.4 billion in 2017, according to analyst forecasts compiled by Thomson Reuters.</p>
<p>Taking on that much debt would be a gutsy move. Alternatively, Tencent could sell fresh equity in Hong Kong to raise funds. Or Tencent could take a more cautious approach, as it did for Supercell: putting together a consortium of buyers and keeping the deal off its own balance sheet. Pulling this off would not be easy. But it would take Tencent&#8217;s global reach up a level.</p>
<p>CONTEXT NEWS</p>
<p>&#8211; Revenues in China&#8217;s online gaming market will reach 221 billion yuan ($32 billion) in 2017, representing an increase of 20.8 percent, according to data from iResearch.</p>
<p>&#8211; Hong Kong-listed Tencent is China&#8217;s largest gaming company by revenue. In June, it led a consortium to buy 84.3 percent of Finnish mobile games-maker Supercell in a deal worth $8.6 billion. The deal values Supercell&#8217;s equity at $10.2 billion.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Tencent heads for high score in gaming M&A

<p>Ghana&#8217;s gross domestic product growth in the third quarter of 2016 GDP rose to 4.0 percent year-on-year, up from 3.6 percent a year ago due to increased oil production, the statistics office said on Wednesday.</p>
<p>For years Ghana&#8217;s economy grew at 8 percent annually on the back of its gold, oil and cocoa exports. But it has slowed sharply since 2013, in part because of lower global commodities prices.</p>
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<p>We saw the resumption of oil production from the Jubilee field &#8230; and this contributed to the increase in GDP for the quarter,&#8221; acting government statistician Baah Wadieh said, adding that the start of oil from the TEN field also boosted growth.</p>
<p>The growth is subject to slight changes as the statistics office agrees on a final number.</p>
<p>The government of outgoing President John Mahama set a full year 2016 GDP target of 4.1 percent and says growth will jump to around 8 percent next year as new offshore oil and gas comes onstream.</p>
<p>Mahama lost a Dec. 7 election to Nana Akufo-Addo, who will take power next month. Many voters said they chose the opposition because of dissatisfaction with the government&#8217;s economic record, particularly on unemployment and inflation.</p>
<p>Akufo-Addo&#8217;s New Patriotic Party says it aims to achieve double digit growth for every year of its four-year rule.</p>
<p>The current government said the economy was hurt by a fall in global prices for the country&#8217;s gold and oil exports. Ghana is following an International Monetary Fund programme to reduce inflation and the deficit and restore fiscal balance.</p>
<p>Ghana&#8217;s producer price inflation, a major component of consumer inflation, rose to 11.9 percent year-on-year in November, from a revised 9.7 percent the month before.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


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The world's best destinations for your career

Changing how people buy and sell property in Ghana

Congo opposition leader says talks on political deal faltering

What you need to know when you’re investing

Man claiming to be Boko Haram leader denies Sambisa defeat

South Africa's petrol price to rise by 4 percent next week

General Cable to pay $20 mn to settle bribery charges

Risking their lives in abandoned mineshafts

Nigeria sells $1 bln to help clear backlog in dollar

Can I and should I live off my investments’ interest?

Boko Haram may have used Chibok girls as shields during attack

Zambia president orders air force to help fight maize pest

Congo opposition leader sentenced to five years in prison

SEC investigates banks that sold Mozambique's tuna bond

Central bank governor says Angola to achieve inflation targets in 2017

Tencent heads for high score in gaming M&A

Ghana Q3 GDP growth rises to 4 pct yr-on-yr

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