JOHANNESBURG, April 1 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s rand weakened early on Thursday as growing bets on faster growth in the United States continued to strain demand for emerging market assets.
At 0630 GMT the rand was 0.37% weaker at 14.8200 per dollar, giving up some of the gains of the previous session that saw it soar to a best of 14.7225 as yield-seeking investors were cheered by a bigger-than-expected trade surplus.
Rising U.S. Treasury yields and a rebound in the dollar spurred by President Joe Biden&#8217;s fiscal stimulus plan and vaccination rollout has put risk demand under pressure, although the rand continued to find takers.
On Thursday the dollar held near a multi-month high against other major currencies.
&#8220;US President Biden’s announcement of a $2 trillion infrastructure plan yesterday is expected to support the reflation trade into the weekend, which means yesterday’s EM currency recovery may be short-lived,&#8221; said economists at ETM Analytics.
Bonds also weakened, with the yield on the benchmark 2020 paper up 3 basis to 9.515%. (Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; editing by Jason Neely)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

South Africa’s rand weakens as investors bet on U.S. growth

April 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Airtel Africa PLC:
* AIRTEL AFRICA PLC &#8211; MASTERCARD INVESTMENT IN MOBILE MONEY BUSINESS
* AIRTEL AFRICA &#8211; SIGNING OF AN AGREEMENT UNDER WHICH MASTERCARD WILL INVEST $100M IN AIRTEL MOBILE COMMERCE BV
* AIRTEL AFRICA &#8211; TRANSACTION VALUES AIRTEL AFRICA&#8217;S MOBILE MONEY BUSINESS AT $2.65BN ON A CASH AND DEBT FREE BASIS.
* AIRTEL AFRICA &#8211; MASTERCARD WILL HOLD A MINORITY STAKE IN AMC BV UPON COMPLETION OF TRANSACTION
* AIRTEL AFRICA &#8211; PROCEEDS FROM TRANSACTION WILL BE USED TO REDUCE GROUP DEBT AND INVEST IN NETWORK AND SALES INFRASTRUCTURE Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

BRIEF-Airtel Africa Says Mastercard To Invest $100 Mln In Its Mobile Money Business

April 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Mastercard Inc will invest $100 million in Airtel Africa&#8217;s mobile money operations valuing the business at $2.65 billion, the London-listed company said on Thursday.
Mastercard will hold a minority stake in Airtel Mobile Commerce, in line with Airtel Africa&#8217;s plan to monetise the mobile money business by selling up to a 25% stake in the unit, the company said. (Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Mastercard to invest $100 mln in Airtel Africa’s mobile money unit

By Promit Mukherjee
JOHANNESBURG, April 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Africa&#8217;s largest company, Naspers Ltd, has hired a top Airbnb and former Amazon executive to lead its global online classifieds business, it said on Thursday, as the technology investor looks to shore up contributions from core businesses.
The company&#8217;s online classifieds business, clubbed under OLX Group, contributes 5% to overall revenues and is the biggest among an array of businesses such as payments and fintech, food delivery and education technology.
However, its size is largely overshadowed by Naspers&#8217; blockbuster investment in Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings , which owns China&#8217;s biggest messaging app, WeChat, and accounts for more than three-fourths of its revenues.
Romain Voog, who was the vice president for worldwide sales operation and geographies at Airbnb, has joined Prosus NV from April 1 as the chief executive officer of OLX Group, it said in a statement.
Prosus is a Naspers subsidiary that houses all of its overseas assets including Tencent and online classifieds business, which is spread across 30 countries.
Voog was the president of Amazon&#8217;s operations in France before his stint at Airbnb. He takes over from Martin Scheepbouwer, who led OLX Group for nine years, the company said.
&#8220;His (Voog&#8217;s) experience inside customer-centric organisations such as Amazon and Airbnb will be an asset to OLX Group as we drive customer-centric innovation in the world of classifieds,&#8221; said Bob van Dijk, CEO of Prosus and Naspers, in an emailed response to Reuters. (Reporting by Promit Mukherjee; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

S.Africa’s Naspers hires Airbnb, Amazon veteran to lead global classifieds business

By Victoria Waldersee and Ruma Paul
DHAKA/LISBON, April 1(Reuters) &#8211; Garment makers in nine countries spanning Asia, the Middle East and North Africa have banded together to demand better contract terms from global clothing retailers, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.
The suppliers hope their united front will prevent retailers from playing them off against each other in search of more lenient terms after suffering from widespread cancellations and payment delays at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Global retailers including Arcadia, Gap, Kohl&#8217;s , and Primark cancelled or paused orders with garment-making factories in Bangladesh worth almost $3.7 billion in March and April last year, the results of a local survey of factories seen by Reuters showed.
While some, including Primark, H&amp;M, Inditex and Gap, later committed to paying the cancelled orders in full, campaigning coalition PayUp estimates $18 billion out of $40 billion worth of payments are still outstanding globally.
Arcadia and Kohl&#8217;s did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Thirteen associations representing garment suppliers in China, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco and Indonesia have drafted minimum terms they hope to present to clients, including a maximum 90-day payment term and an end to discounts after orders are placed.
The draft document, due to be finalised and released in late April, is a joint initiative of the Star Network, funded by Germany&#8217;s international development agency GIZ, and the International Apparel Federation.
&#8220;It has become very clear to manufacturers that their vulnerability has increased and that they must play a stronger role in setting standards for purchasing practices,&#8221; a statement announcing the initiative published on Thursday said.
Though the document will not be legally enforceable, the aim is to foster purchasing practices which &#8220;do not cross the boundary of misuse of buying power to the obvious and avoidable detriment of the manufacturer,&#8221; according to the release.
A later phase of the initiative would also aim to build ways of enforcing the terms, including an international arbitration mechanism for manufacturers to raise grievances with buyers.
&#8220;We tended to blindly trust our customers,&#8221; said Miran Ali, spokesman for the Star Network. &#8220;If they said they want to buy 100,000 yards of fabric from us and they&#8217;ll send the purchase order in three weeks, we&#8217;d just go ahead and do it. That faith has been lost.&#8221;
Global retailers lost $1.2 trillion in sales in 2020, a 3.9% drop, according to research firm Forrester, as global lockdowns decimated demand and shut stores for months on end. Though some sales were recuperated online, many clothing retailers were forced to impose steep discounts in an attempt to get rid of unsold stock.
The Penn State Center for Global Workers&#8217; Rights said in a report that U.S. and European Union trade data showed a $16.2 billion drop in apparel imports in April through June 2020.
While clothing sales are beginning to recover from last year&#8217;s record losses, orders are still far smaller than before the pandemic, with shorter lead times and longer payment windows, factory owners, sourcing agents and retailers themselves say.

&#8216;NOT A HAPPY MESSAGE&#8217;
The draft document says retailers must pay suppliers within 90 days, with deferred payments attracting an additional fee to cover interest and loss of profit, while discounts could not be requested after a purchase order is issued.
A letter from Marks &amp; Spencer to its suppliers on April 7, 2020 stated orders shipped after March 24 would be paid up to 120 days from invoice receipt date, up from 75 days previously and nearly three times the pre-pandemic industry average of 43 days. These terms remain in place, a Marks &amp; Spencer spokesperson said, declining to comment further.
In anticipation of lower sales, other retailers imposed discounts on orders already in production.
A letter sent by Hong Kong-based sourcing agent Li &amp; Fung to some suppliers of American Eagle Outfitters in April last year and seen by Reuters said that a 20% discount would be applied to orders affected by the coronavirus.
&#8220;We know it is not a happy message&#8230;but&#8230;it is the crucial fact we&#8217;re facing now because we all know chicken dies, no eggs,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;A PIECE OF CAKE IS NOT ABLE TO FEED ALL.&#8221;
Li &amp; Fung did not respond to a request for comment. American Eagle Outfitters referred Reuters to its statement made last July when it said it had to make &#8220;immediate and difficult business decisions&#8221; and had &#8220;negotiated a one-time discount on a small amount of unshipped orders last April&#8221;.

&#8216;FORCE MAJEURE&#8217;
The draft also includes limitations on the use of the &#8216;force majeure&#8217; clause which exempts retailers from costs and liability for events outside their control.
A cancellation clause in a purchasing order used by Kohl&#8217;s gives it the right to cancel an order in the event of natural disasters, disease outbreaks and government restrictions, among other events beyond its control, without being subject to &#8220;any liability, cost or charge whatsoever&#8221;.
A letter Arcadia sent to its suppliers informing them of its cancellation of orders due to the impact of COVID-19 stated: &#8220;we are able to cancel any order at any stage. This includes orders in production and orders in transit&#8230; we are not responsible for the cost of the Goods&#8221;.
Extracts of the purchasing order used by Kohl&#8217;s and the Arcadia letter were published in a September 2020 report by the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights. The companies did not respond to a request for comment on their communication with suppliers. Arcadia fell into administration late last year.  
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and the Workers Rights Consortium questioned retailers&#8217; use of force majeure during the pandemic in the report, saying parties invoking the clause should prove they made all possible attempts to mitigate the effects of the unforeseen event.
According to U.S. and UK law, they must demonstrate that taking delivery of orders would be &#8220;commercially impracticable&#8221; &#8211; which may not be clear-cut for brands with sufficient cash flow and solid e-commerce sales, the report said.
Garment suppliers hope to tip the balance of power in their favour, more fairly distributing risk in the event of another unforeseen disruption to sales.
&#8220;Buyers are asking for drastic cuts and delays in payments&#8230;but if I refuse, they will go to another supplier,&#8221; a garment factory owner in Dhaka who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of losing business, said.
&#8220;We need a fair policy, badly,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Or the garment industry will not survive.&#8221;
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee, Ruma Paul, Additional reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Carmel Crimmins)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

INSIGHT-Global garment makers unite to demand better terms from retailers

The following scheduled economic events, company announcements, equity and currency market moves may affect South African markets on Thursday.

ECONOMIC EVENTS
&#8211; March new vehicle sales. 1200 GMT
&#8211; Absa purchasing manager&#8217;s index. 0900 GMT

COMPANIES
&#8211; Half Year 2021 Ascendis Health Ltd Earnings Call.

SOUTH AFRICAN MARKETS
South Africa&#8217;s rand rallied to its best in a week on Wednesday, after data showed the trade surplus widened in February on increased export activity.
The benchmark FTSE/JSE all-share index .JALSH slipped by 1.2% to close at 66,485 points while the bluechip FTSE/JSE top-40 companies&#8217; index .JTOPI ended down 1.15% to 60,881 points.

GLOBAL MARKETS
Stocks crept higher on Thursday following their weakest quarter in a year, while higher Treasury yields supported the dollar, as investors parsed the details of a $2 trillion U.S. government spending plan and hoped for strong jobs data later in the week.

WALL STREET
The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq rose on Wednesday, boosted by gains in technology shares, and the three major Wall Street indexes registered their fourth straight quarterly rise as investors positioned themselves for President Joe Biden&#8217;s massive infrastructure plan.

GOLD
Gold bounced back on Thursday from a three-week low hit in the previous session, as the U.S. dollar and Treasury yields eased, while President Joe Biden&#8217;s $2 trillion-plus jobs plan further supported the metal&#8217;s appeal as a hedge against inflation.

EMERGING MARKETS
For the top emerging markets news, double click on
&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211;
Some of the main stories out in the South African press:

BUSINESS DAY
&#8211; Novavax to be evaluated for SA use.
&#8211; Old constraints to stall SA’s recovery even as GDP rebounds in 2021, World Bank says.

FIN 24
&#8211; South Africa commits to reducing carbon emissions by 17% in 2025.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

South African Markets – Factors to watch on April 1

April 1 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s Eskom:
* ESKOM BOARD FINALISES APPOINTMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF INQUIRY INTO ALLEGATION AGAINST GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ANDRÉ DE RUYTER Source text: https://bit.ly/3sLcLkc
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

BRIEF-Eskom Board Finalises Appointment Of Chairman Of Inquiry Into Allegation Against Group Chief Executive

NAIROBI, April 1 (Reuters) &#8211; The following company announcements, scheduled economic indicators, debt and currency market moves and political events may affect African markets on Thursday. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; GLOBAL MARKETS Stocks crept higher on Thursday following their weakest quarter in a year, while higher Treasury yields supported the dollar, as investors parsed the details of a $2 trillion U.S. government spending plan and hoped for strong jobs data later in the week. WORLD OIL PRICES Crude prices rose on Thursday, recouping some of the previous session&#8217;s losses on expectations that a meeting of OPEC and its allies later on Thursday would yield output constraint in the face of resurgent COVID-19 infections in some regions. EMERGING MARKETS For the top emerging markets news, double click on AFRICA STOCKS For the latest news on African stocks, click on SOUTH AFRICA MARKETS South Africa&#8217;s rand rallied to its best in a week on Wednesday, after data showed the trade surplus widened in February on increased export activity. KENYA MARKETS Kenya&#8217;s shilling was steady on Wednesday, and traders said they expected it to strengthen, due to offshore investor inflows into a Treasury bond sale and release of some money to the government from a new International Monetary Fund programme. KENYA ELECTRICITY Kenya&#8217;s President Uhuru Kenyatta has set up a team to review power purchase agreements signed over the years by the state power distributor, which has been making losses in the recent past. KENYA I&amp;M HOLDINGS RESULTS Kenyan lender I&amp;M Holdings IMH.NR said on Wednesday its 2020 full-year pretax profit fell by a quarter to 10.95 billion shillings ($100.09 million), as its loan loss provisions jumped due to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. STANBIC BANK UGANDA RESULTS Uganda&#8217;s biggest lender, Stanbic , posted an 8.9% decline in its pretax profit as the impact of the coronavirus crisis drove up impairments. TANZANIA FINANCE MINISTER Tanzania&#8217;s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has picked Mwigulu Nchemba as her finance minister, she said in a televised announcement on Wednesday. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO MINING Congo&#8217;s state cobalt buyer announced a responsible sourcing standard for artisanal cobalt on Wednesday as it launched its ambitious move to bring all informal cobalt mining in the country under state control. WEST AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK PROJECTS The West African Development Bank will finance projects worth over 5 billion euros ($5.9 billion) in the period from 2021 to 2025 in the eight-nation monetary union, the bank&#8217;s president Serge Ekue said on Wednesday. For the latest precious metals report click on For the latest base metals report click on For the latest crude oil report click on 
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

African Markets – Factors to watch on April 1

* COVID-19 threatens to widen the digital divide
* African internet users struggle to find relevant content
* Projects spread information in local African languages
By Kim Harrisberg and Kristi Eaton
JOHANNESBURG/TULSA, April 1 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) &#8211; T he words &#8220;facemask&#8221; and &#8220;hand sanitiser&#8221; are now familiar the world over, but for isiZulu speakers in South Africa those terms did not exist a year ago, until a group of volunteers took to the internet to create them.
From Wikipedia posts in indigenous tongues to digital word libraries, African language lovers are going online to preserve and create words and content for future generations &#8211; an effort that has been given added urgency by the coronavirus pandemic.
&#8220;Language is very important, it&#8217;s the tool we use to communicate our understanding of the world,&#8221; said Perrymason Adams, 39, an accountant in South Africa who volunteers with WikiAfrica, a project to increase Wikipedia content in African languages.
With recurring lockdowns around the world to stem the spread of COVID-19, rights groups warn that the digital divide separating those who can learn and work online from those who cannot deepens already existing inequality.
Online access is growing rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa, with internet penetration in the region surging to 25% of the population in 2019 against less than 1% in 2000, according to the World Bank.
But research shows even Africans who can get on the web often struggle to find content they can relate to.
According to the World Economic Forum, one of the main reasons many Africans do not go online when they can is &#8220;lack of content in local languages&#8221;.
This is a big drive behind WikiAfrica, which since it was launched by the Moleskine Foundation in 2006 has contributed more than 40,000 written entries, as well as images, audio and video files, to the widely popular online encyclopedia.
During the pandemic, translating information around social distancing, masks and sanitisers has become crucial, said Adams, who has volunteered to translate material to isiZulu and isiXhosa, another South African language.
Adams was &#8220;mind-blown&#8221; when he heard of the initiative two years ago and wanted to keep translating articles during lockdown &#8211; on the origins of the new coronavirus, lockdowns and facemasks.
&#8220;I knew this information could be life-saving, I felt like I was being a language activist,&#8221; he said, noting that he speaks four languages at home with his family and did the isiZulu translations with his mother.

DEMOCRATISING INFORMATION
Volunteers for the WikiAfrica programme translate online content into nearly 20 African languages, including Twi, Swahili, Afrikaans and Dagbani, according to a spokeswoman from the Moleskine Foundation.
The translated articles have been viewed more than 500,000 times, says the nonprofit, which focuses on cultural projects and helps train translators across the continent.
At the start of the pandemic, the organisation&#8217;s officials noticed the amount of content about COVID-19 on Wikipedia in African languages was lacking, said chief executive officer and co-founder Adama Sanneh.
&#8220;So we created a campaign to say to all the African-language speakers from the continent (and) from the diaspora to say, &#8216;If you know the language, please translate some of this content from English or French or Portuguese&#8217;,&#8221; he said over Zoom.
Part of WikiAfrica is about &#8220;democratising information,&#8221; said Lwando Xaso, a lawyer and activist from Constitution Hill Trust, an organisation promoting the South African constitution that partnered with the programme.
&#8220;I think the urgency of the virus is that no one should be outside of their information bubble,&#8221; Xaso said.

FREE ACCESS
Across the world, various efforts to translate materials into African mother tongues are generating culturally relevant content while also helping keep indigenous languages alive.
The United Nations in Nigeria created a COVID-19 misinformation portal that answers frequently asked questions in Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo languages.
And last year, 30 young Africans came together to translate COVID-19 public health guidelines into 18 of the most common African languages after University of Cambridge researcher Ebele Mogo took to social media to call for translation assistance.
When COVID-19 was first recorded in her home country of Nigeria, Mogo worried about the spread of misinformation, such as tips to eat garlic or take hot baths to ward off the virus, according to the website for her project.
&#8220;For those frightened by the prospect of not being able to protect themselves and their families, it can be all too easy to take the wrong advice,&#8221; she said on the site.
Outside of the pandemic, since 2011 Boston University has been building up repositories of digitised, endangered West African manuscripts.
These initiatives are invaluable, said Mahlatse Hlongwane, 24, a student and WikiAfrica volunteer from South Africa&#8217;s Limpopo province, who said she found new Sesotho words related to the pandemic by listening to the radio and hearing new terms being used informally.
But, she added, people need more data-free websites to access the content on their mobile phones, especially in rural areas where information is scarce.
&#8220;I would love for people to know that information is online for them,&#8221; Hlongwane said.

&#8216;ALL ABOUT VISIBILITY&#8217;
To boost the spread of information in South Africa&#8217;s 11 official languages, Wikimedia South Africa, a nonprofit organisation, has partnered with the Moleskine Foundation to hold &#8220;edit workshops&#8221; to teach people how to properly edit Wikipedia entries around various themes.
Learning about copyright law is an integral part of the process, said Wikimedia South Africa president Bobby Shabangu.
For example, he noted, uploading a photo of a statue could be considered a copyright breach in the country, a law the group is advocating to be changed.
At one workshop in 2019, volunteers created WikiAfrica page entries on African, female artists, written in indigenous African languages.
&#8220;It is all about visibility,&#8221; said Adams, the volunteer in Pretoria.
&#8220;It is about writing them (African women artists) back into history &#8230; so a reader can be inspired and see themselves and say, &#8220;Oh, wow!&#8221; And it opens up a world view of what is possible,&#8221; he said.
In South Africa, language was used by the apartheid government as a way of controlling the Black majority population, Adams noted.
Under the Bantu Education Act, enacted in 1953, students were divided along racial lines and forced to learn in Afrikaans, a language born of Dutch settlement in the country in the 17th century.
&#8220;Due to our history, a lot of people, identities and cultures were erased,&#8221; Adams said.
&#8220;It is really important to feel you exist, that your presence is acknowledged, that you are seen as human, as a person.&#8221;

(Reporting by Kim @KimHarrisberg in Johannesburg and Kristi Eaton in Tulsa, Editing by Jumana Farouky and Zoe Tabary. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

FEATURE-Young Africans go online to preserve local languages, fight COVID-19

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. industry is &#8220;materially injured&#8221; by imports of common alloy aluminum sheet from 16 countries that are sold in the United States at less than fair value and subsidized by the governments of Bahrain, India and Turkey, the U.S. International Trade Commission said on Wednesday.
The Commerce Department will issue anti-dumping duty orders on the 16 countries and countervailing duty orders on imports of the product from Bahrain, India and Turkey as a result of the USITC determination, USITC said in a statement.
The 16 countries are Bahrain, Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Oman, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan and Turkey. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chris Reese)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

U.S. industry hurt by some imports of common alloy aluminum sheet -statement

ABIDJAN, March 31 (Reuters) &#8211; Ivory Coast exported 166,183 tonnes of natural rubber in January and February, down more than 30% from the same period in 2020, provisional port data showed on Wednesday.
The reasons for the decline were not immediately clear.
Ivory Coast, the world&#8217;s top cocoa producer, is also Africa&#8217;s leading grower of natural rubber.
Exports have risen in recent years as farmers, attracted by the promise of more stable incomes, have increasingly switched to rubber from cocoa.

The following are port figures in tonnes:

Feb 2021 Jan 2021 Feb 2020 Jan 2020 Abidjan 54,150 66,179 109,612 86,708
San Pedro 21,202 24,652 22,312 20,266
Total 75,352 90,831 131,924 106,974
Cumulative 166,183 90,831 238,898 106,974

NOTE: Cumulative figures are totals for the year to the end of each month. February data for Abidjan is provisional and subject to revision. January data for Abidjan was revised to 66,179 tonnes, from 63,267 tonnes previously. (Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Editing by Aaron Ross/Mark Heinrich)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

TABLE-Ivory Coast Jan-Feb 2021 rubber exports slide 30%

By Oliver Griffin and Jake Spring
BOGOTA, March 31 (Reuters) &#8211; Worldwide losses of old-growth tropical forests increased 12% in 2020, with climate impacts such as fires, storms and droughts playing a significant role, causing an area roughly the size of Denmark to disappear, according to new data reported on Wednesday.
The world lost 4.2 million hectares (10.4 million acres) of these humid primary forests in 2020, compared with 3.75 million hectares lost in 2019, according to the data from the University of Maryland, published by the World Resource Institute (WRI).
Environmentalists seek to preserve old-growth forests, which attain a great age without significant disturbance, for the ecosystem benefits they provide.
More broadly, the total of all trees lost in 2020, including in boreal and temperate forests, went up 6.6%, according to WRI&#8217;s Global Forest Watch platform.
&#8220;Every year we ring the alarm bell, and the numbers continue to tick up,&#8221; WRI fellow Frances Seymour said at a virtual news conference.
Increasingly, forests are falling victims to climate change, Seymour warned, citing fires in wetlands.
&#8220;We’re getting into a vicious cycle,&#8221; she said.
Anecdotal evidence suggests people took advantage of coronavirus lockdowns to illegally log or clear in protected areas, Seymour said, describing an uptick in such activities as a continuation of past trends.
She worried that countries anxious to recover economically from the pandemic might not prioritize forest protection in the future.
Governments &#8220;are going to look for places to cut budgets, and often environmental ministries are the first to suffer,&#8221; Seymour said, adding some countries had already relaxed environmental regulations to boost job creation.
Five of the top-10 countries for forest loss in 2020 are in Latin America, led by Brazil and Bolivia, the data shows. In Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo saw the most forest lost.
One bright spot was Indonesia. While still fourth globally for primary forest loss, 2020 marked the fourth consecutive year of decreasing deforestation for the Southeast Asian country, WRI said, attributing the improvement partly to government policies to protect forests. (Reporting by Oliver Griffin in Bogota and Jake Spring in Brasilia; Editing by Howard Goller)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

World old-growth tropical forest losses increase 12% in 2020, data shows

SAO PAULO, March 31 (Reuters) &#8211; Brazil has detected a new COVID-19 variant in Sao Paulo state that is similar to the one first seen in South Africa, Dimas Covas, the president of the state&#8217;s Butantan biomedical institute, said on Wednesday. (Reporting by Eduardo Simoes, writing by Gabriel Stargardter; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Brazil detects new COVID-19 variant similar to South African – Butantan chief

LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) &#8211; More cargoes of Angolan crude were offered on Wednesday, some at lower differentials, as demand in Europe and China remains subdued.
ANGOLA
* State oil company Sonangol was still offering two cargoes on a spot basis for May &#8211; a cargo of Saturno loading May 18-19 at dated Brent minus $1.00 and a cargo of Cabinda loading May 8-9 at dated Brent plus 80 cents, a trader said.
* Exxon offered a cargo via the Platts system, a May 18-19 Kissanje at dated Brent minus $1.00, trimming the offer from minus 70 cents initially.
* Equinor was still offering a cargo of Girassol via Platts, showing it at dated Brent minus 35 cents a barrel loading May 1-12, lower than an offer on Tuesday.

NIGERIA
* Qua Iboe and Bonny Light were assessed at parity to slightly below dated Brent, stable compared to Tuesday. (Reporting by Alex Lawler; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) ))
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

W. Africa Crude-More Angolan crude offered amid weak demand

* Nigeria is Africa&#8217;s most populous country
* Expects to get 30 million J&amp;J doses in July
* Extra budget to fund vaccines expected within two weeks
By Alexis Akwagyiram
ABUJA, March 31 (Reuters) &#8211; Nigeria hopes to receive up to 70 million doses of the Johnson &amp; Johnson COVID-19 vaccine this year through the African Union (AU), its primary healthcare chief told Reuters, amid concerns about delayed deliveries of AstraZeneca shots.
Rolling out vaccines in developing nations such as Nigeria, whose 200 million-strong population is Africa&#8217;s biggest, is seen as key to stemming the global spread of the new coronavirus.
Nigeria, which has recorded 2,049 deaths from COVID-19 and began vaccinations this month, plans to inoculate 40% of its people this year and another 30% in 2022.
Last week, India &#8211; the world&#8217;s biggest vaccine maker &#8211; said it would prioritise domestic inoculations, prompting fears of delays in the export of AstraZeneca doses under the World Health Organization (WHO)-backed COVAX scheme to supply vaccines to poorer countries.
In a separate development, Johnson &amp; Johnson on Monday said it will supply the AU with up to 400 million doses of its single-dose vaccine beginning in the third quarter.
Faisal Shuaib, who heads Nigeria&#8217;s National Primary Health Care Development Agency, told Reuters that Nigeria expects to initially receive 30 million doses of the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine in July through the AU.
&#8220;We&#8217;re hoping that we&#8217;ll be able to get up to 70 million doses of the Johnson &amp; Johnson this year. This is yet to be finalised but these are some of the advanced conversations that are going on between Nigeria and the African Union,&#8221; he said during an interview in the capital, Abuja.
Nigeria previously said it had applied for 41 million doses of vaccines through the AU, comprising of Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson &amp; Johnson shots. But Shuaib said the proportion of AstraZenca doses was likely to be reduced by the delays.
&#8220;Some of the allocations that we were supposed to get for the AstraZeneca will be replaced by the Johnson and Johnson,&#8221; he said, adding that this was yet to be finalised.
Germany has from Wednesday restricted the use of AstraZeneca&#8217;s vaccine to those aged 60 and above as it investigates a small number of reports of rare blood clotting in people who got the vaccine. And Canada on Monday said it would not offer the shots to people under 55.
Global regulators have said the shot is safe and effective.
Shuaib said there was no evidence of adverse side effects in Nigeria and the AstraZeneca vaccine would continue to be used for eligible people aged 18 and above.
Nigeria&#8217;s finance minister has said the country will draw up a supplementary budget to cover the cost of COVID-19 vaccinations, for which no provision was made in the 2021 finance bill adopted in December.
Shuaib said he expected the supplementary budget to be presented to lawmakers within the next two weeks. (Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Nigeria aims to get 70 million J&J COVID-19 vaccines through African Union

By Kirthana Pillay
JOHANNESBURG, March 31 (Reuters) &#8211; The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has discontinued some major market indices, including the closely watched gold index, to reflect the change in prominence of some companies and sectors in the economy, it said on Tuesday.
The JSE Ltd follows international standards of classification of sectors and it modified some indexes to reflect a more realistic and detailed evolution across sectors, JSE said in an emailed response to Reuters.
Under the modified index, it has decommissioned gold and platinum indexes and has moved all of them, including diamond mining companies, under a new sector classification called precious metals and mining.
JSE did not say under which index gold companies will be tracked.
South Africa was once the world&#8217;s biggest gold producer, but decades of mining have depleted reserves and the industry has consolidated into three major players, reducing its impact on the overall economy, analysts said.
The coal index, which was previously classed under the basic materials industry, is now under the energy industry, while general retailers are categorised under two separate sectors of consumer services index and retailers index.
These changes took effect at the start of business on March 23. (Reporting by Kirthana Pillay Editing by Promit Mukherjee and Barbara Lewis)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

South Africa’s stock exchange scraps gold, platinum indexes

TORONTO/JOHANNESBURG, March 31 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s Anglogold Ashanti does not need to pursue mergers and won&#8217;t add scale for its own sake, its interim chief executive said on Wednesday, tamping speculation it could take part in further consolidation of the sector.
Sibanye-Stillwater CEO Neal Froneman this month floated the idea of a merger with peers AngloGold and Gold Fields, arguing consolidation is needed for South Africa&#8217;s gold miners to compete globally.
Interim CEO Christine Ramon declined to comment directly when asked about a potential tie-up with Gold Fields during a roundtable at the Mining Indaba Virtual Investment Programme alongside Froneman and Barrick Gold head Mark Bristow.
Consolidation can bring benefits including operational synergies, but can also add complexity and costs, she said.
&#8220;I think bigger doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean better,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We wouldn&#8217;t look to build scale just for the sake of it.&#8221;
Ramon, who replaced Kelvin Dushinsky at the helm of Anglogold last year on an interim basis, said the miner is focused on developing its own assets and has the support of investors.
&#8220;For us it&#8217;s far more important not to get distracted,&#8221; she said. (Reporting by Jeff Lewis in Toronto and Tanisha Heiberg in Johannesburg; Editing by Jan Harvey)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Newsfeed

South Africa’s rand weakens as investors bet on U.S. growth

BRIEF-Airtel Africa Says Mastercard To Invest $100 Mln In Its Mobile Money Business

Mastercard to invest $100 mln in Airtel Africa’s mobile money unit

S.Africa’s Naspers hires Airbnb, Amazon veteran to lead global classifieds business

INSIGHT-Global garment makers unite to demand better terms from retailers

South African Markets – Factors to watch on April 1

BRIEF-Eskom Board Finalises Appointment Of Chairman Of Inquiry Into Allegation Against Group Chief Executive

African Markets – Factors to watch on April 1

FEATURE-Young Africans go online to preserve local languages, fight COVID-19

U.S. industry hurt by some imports of common alloy aluminum sheet -statement

TABLE-Ivory Coast Jan-Feb 2021 rubber exports slide 30%

World old-growth tropical forest losses increase 12% in 2020, data shows

Brazil detects new COVID-19 variant similar to South African – Butantan chief

W. Africa Crude-More Angolan crude offered amid weak demand

Nigeria aims to get 70 million J&J COVID-19 vaccines through African Union

South Africa’s stock exchange scraps gold, platinum indexes

South Africa’s Anglogold plays down merger prospects amid deal talk

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Newsfeed

South Africa’s rand weakens as investors bet on U.S. growth

BRIEF-Airtel Africa Says Mastercard To Invest $100 Mln In Its Mobile Money Business

Mastercard to invest $100 mln in Airtel Africa’s mobile money unit

S.Africa’s Naspers hires Airbnb, Amazon veteran to lead global classifieds business

INSIGHT-Global garment makers unite to demand better terms from retailers

South African Markets – Factors to watch on April 1

BRIEF-Eskom Board Finalises Appointment Of Chairman Of Inquiry Into Allegation Against Group Chief Executive

African Markets – Factors to watch on April 1

FEATURE-Young Africans go online to preserve local languages, fight COVID-19

U.S. industry hurt by some imports of common alloy aluminum sheet -statement

TABLE-Ivory Coast Jan-Feb 2021 rubber exports slide 30%

World old-growth tropical forest losses increase 12% in 2020, data shows

Brazil detects new COVID-19 variant similar to South African – Butantan chief

W. Africa Crude-More Angolan crude offered amid weak demand

Nigeria aims to get 70 million J&J COVID-19 vaccines through African Union

South Africa’s stock exchange scraps gold, platinum indexes

South Africa’s Anglogold plays down merger prospects amid deal talk

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Newsletters