<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="573" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/54OZJBBSHVOAZPY7PBW3ZKRWYU-820x573.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-475533" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/54OZJBBSHVOAZPY7PBW3ZKRWYU-820x573.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/54OZJBBSHVOAZPY7PBW3ZKRWYU-300x210.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/54OZJBBSHVOAZPY7PBW3ZKRWYU-129x90.jpg 129w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/54OZJBBSHVOAZPY7PBW3ZKRWYU-768x537.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/54OZJBBSHVOAZPY7PBW3ZKRWYU-1536x1074.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/54OZJBBSHVOAZPY7PBW3ZKRWYU-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A seagull flies past a second-hand vehicle trader WeBuyCars Buying Pod in Cape Town, South Africa, April 10, 2024. REUTERS/Esa Alexander/FILE PHOTO</figcaption></figure>



JOHANNESBURG, April 11 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;WeBuyCars made its market debut on Thursday, giving the South African secondhand vehicle trader a market capitalisation of 8.3 billion rand ($441 million) on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.



Chief Executive Faan van der Walt, standing next to his brother and co-founder Dirk, blew into the African kudu horn as the opening share price of 20 rand was announced on the JSE.



WeBuyCars marks the second JSE listing of 2024, with others including Pick n Pay&#8217;s PIKJ.J discount grocery retailer Boxer, and food producer RCL&#8217;s RCLJ.JRainbow Chicken expressing interest to list at some point.



Shares in WeBuyCars traded as high as 20.85 rand, up from its initial public offering (IPO) price of 18.75 rand.



Van der Walt said the brothers had never imagined listing the family-owned business when they started it in 2001, but now that WeBuyCars was big enough, the time was right.



&#8220;There is still a lot of space for us to grow,&#8221; Van der Walt told Reuters. &#8220;We&#8217;re well positioned, we have the tech, we have the people, we have the footprint so we strongly believe that we can double up again in the next five years,&#8221; he added.



WeBuyCars, which has a market share of 10% to 12% in South Africa is targeting about 23% by 2028, and also aiming to sell 22,000 cars per month, up from 14,000 currently.



With 15 branches and 74 buying pods or kiosks at shopping centres, WeBuyCars plans to open in Rustenburg, Bloemfontein and East London in the near future, Van der Walt said.



WeBuyCars was unbundled from Transaction Capital&nbsp;TCPJ.J&nbsp;and listed separately in order to unlock value and give an option to invest directly in the secondhand car retailer.



Transaction Capital will use the proceeds from various capital raisings to settle holding company level debt.



($1 = 18.8293 rand)



(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by Alexander Smith)

South Africa’s second-hand vehicle trader WeBuyCars lists on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange

WeBuyCars marks South African market debut with share price rise

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107352556-1703848030465-gettyimages-1423009563-china-820x462.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-475494" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107352556-1703848030465-gettyimages-1423009563-china-820x462.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107352556-1703848030465-gettyimages-1423009563-china-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107352556-1703848030465-gettyimages-1423009563-china-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107352556-1703848030465-gettyimages-1423009563-china-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107352556-1703848030465-gettyimages-1423009563-china.jpeg 929w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Flag of China on dark blue background Da-kuk | E+ | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



China will remain the largest growth engine for the world economy in spite of its slowdown, the Asian Development Bank said.



“China is obviously going to still be important for some time to come. They still account for nearly half of GDP in Asia Pacific,” ADB’s chief economist Albert Park said in a press conference for the bank’s Asian Development Outlook report.&nbsp;



“Although growth is moderating, and we are expecting it to continue moderating in the coming years… it’s likely to contribute the most growth of any economy in the world to global growth,” said Park.



ADB forecasts China to post annual GDP growth of 4.8% in 2024, lower than the government’s target of “around 5%.” China’s economy expanded 5.2% in 2023, matching the official target of around 5%.



Even with slower growth, ADB data estimated China will account for 46% of growth in developing Asia in 2024-2025.



China currently accounts for 18% and 48% of global and Asian GDP, respectively, based on purchasing power parities exchange rates, a metric used by the ADB, World Bank and International Monetary Fund.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-about-india"><a></a>What about India?</h2>



India’s stellar economic trajectory has led many to tout the country’s role as a technology and manufacturing powerhouse and an attractive alternative to China. The South Asian nation’s economy recently expanded at its fastest pace in six quarters, surpassing expectations with 8.4% growth in the October to December quarter of the current financial year 2023-24.



“India’s importance to growth in the region is increasing,” Park told CNBC via email. ADB expects the country’s growth to be the highest in the region, at 7% in 2024 and 7.2% in 2025. 



While India’s economy is undoubtedly a “bright spot,” it is still smaller than China’s, said Park. On the PPP exchange rate metric, the economist noted China’s economy is still about two and a half times that of India.&nbsp;



“So on that benchmark, it will take a long time, I think, for India to really drive global growth,” he added.



Additionally, growth in advanced economies is expected to slow this year, with ADB forecasting U.S. GDP growth to dip to 1.9% from last year’s 2.5%, and Japan’s to grow 0.6% compared to 1.9% in 2023.



The bank in its report also said it expects developing Asia’s growth this year to be slightly stronger than its December projections, as healthy domestic demand offsets the slowdown in China.&nbsp;&nbsp;



In spite of rising energy prices, inflation is also expected to moderate in Asia-Pacific from 3.3% in 2023 to 3.2% this year.

107352556-1703848030465-gettyimages-1423009563-china

China will remain the world’s No. 1 growth driver, says the Asian Development Bank

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SMJADHBEX5KLZIUNYIQ6KAI6HA-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-475259" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SMJADHBEX5KLZIUNYIQ6KAI6HA-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SMJADHBEX5KLZIUNYIQ6KAI6HA-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SMJADHBEX5KLZIUNYIQ6KAI6HA-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SMJADHBEX5KLZIUNYIQ6KAI6HA-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SMJADHBEX5KLZIUNYIQ6KAI6HA-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SMJADHBEX5KLZIUNYIQ6KAI6HA-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">FILE PHOTO: Produce is seen at El Progreso Market in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C., U.S., August 19, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger/File Photo</figcaption></figure>



The consumer price index accelerated at a faster than expected pace in March, pushing inflation higher and likely dashing hopes that Federal Reserve will be able to cut interest rates anytime soon.



The CPI, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the economy, rose 0.4% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 3.5%, or 0.3 percentage point higher than in February, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% gain and a 3.4% year-over-year level.



Excluding volatile food and energy components, core CPI also accelerated 0.4% on a monthly basis while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared to respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%.



Stock market futures slumped following the report while Treasury yields spiked higher.



Shelter and energy costs drove the increase on the all-items index.



Energy rose 1.1% after increasing 2.3% in February, while shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the weighting in the CPI, were higher by 0.4% on the month and up 5.7% from a year ago. Expectations for shelter-related costs to decelerate through the year have been central to the Fed’s thesis that inflation will cool enough to allow for interest rate cuts.



Food prices increased just 0.1% on the month and were up 2.2% on a year-over-year basis. There were some big gains within the food category, however.



The measure for meat, fish, poultry and eggs climbed 0.9%, pushed by a 4.6% jump in egg prices. Butter fell 5% and cereal and bakery products declined by 0.9%. Food away from home increased 0.3%.



Elsewhere, used vehicle prices declined 1.1% and medical care services prices rose 0.6%.



The report comes with markets on edge and Fed officials expressing caution about the near-term direction for monetary policy. Central bank policymakers have repeatedly called for patience on cutting rates, saying they have not seen enough evidence that inflation is on a solid path back to their 2% annual goal. The March report likely confirmed worries that inflation is stickier than expected.



Markets had expected the Fed to start cutting interest rates in June with three reductions in total expected this year, but that shifted dramatically following the release. Traders in the fed funds futures market pushed expectations for the first cut out to September, according to CME Group calculations.



″“There’s not much you can point to that this is going to result in a shift away from the hawkish bent” from Fed officials, said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “June to me is definitely off the table.”



The Fed also expects services inflation to ease through the year, but that has shown to be stubborn as well. Excluding energy, the services index increased 0.5% in March and was at a 5.4% annual rate, inconsistent with the Fed’s target.



″This marks the third consecutive strong reading and means that the stalled disinflationary narrative can no longer be called a blip,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management. “In fact, even if inflation were to cool next month to a more comfortable reading, there is likely sufficient caution within the Fed now to mean that a July cut may also be a stretch, by which point the US election will begin to intrude with Fed decision making.”



Later Wednesday, the Fed will release minutes from its March meeting, providing more insight into where officials stand on monetary policy.



Multiple Fed officials in recent days have expressed skepticism about lowering rates. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic told CNBC that he expects just one cut this year, likely not coming until the fourth quarter. Governor Michelle Bowman said an increase may even be necessary if the data do not cooperate.

FILE PHOTO: Grocery store in Washington

U.S. consumer prices rose 3.5% from a year ago in March, more than expected

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107139885-1666645552719-abc1-820x462.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-475230" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107139885-1666645552719-abc1-820x462.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107139885-1666645552719-abc1-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107139885-1666645552719-abc1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107139885-1666645552719-abc1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/107139885-1666645552719-abc1.jpg 929w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Shoppers are seen in a Kroger supermarket on October 14, 2022, in Atlanta, Georgia.  Elijah Nouvelage | AFP | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



A closely watched Labor Department report due Wednesday is expected to show that not much progress is being made in the battle to bring down inflation.



If so, that would be bad news for consumers, market participants and Federal Reserve officials, who are hoping price increases slow enough so that they can start gradually cutting interest rates later this year.



The consumer price index, which measures costs for a wide-ranging basket of goods and services across the $27.4 trillion U.S. economy, is expected to register increases of 0.3% both for the all-items measure as well as the core yardstick that excludes volatile food and energy.



On a 12-month basis that would put the inflation rates at 3.4% and 3.7%, respectively, a 0.2 percentage point increase in the headline rate from February, just a 0.1 percentage point decrease for the core rate, and both still a far cry from the central bank’s 2% target.



“We’re not headed there fast enough or convincing enough, and I think that’s what this report is going to show,” said Dan North, senior economist at Allianz Trade North America.



The report will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-progress-but-not-enough"><a></a>Progress, but not enough</h2>



North said he expects Fed officials to view the report pretty much the same way, backing up comments they’ve been making for weeks that they need more evidence that inflation is convincingly on its way back to 2% before rate cuts can happen.



“Moving convincingly toward 2% doesn’t just mean hitting 2% for one month. It means hitting 2% or less for months and months in a row,” North said. “We’re a long way from that, and that’s probably what’s going to show tomorrow as well.”



To be sure, inflation has come down dramatically from its peak above 9% in June 2022. The Fed enacted 11 interest rate hikes form March 2022 to July 2023 totaling 5.25 percentage points for its benchmark overnight borrowing rate known as the federal funds rate.



But progress has been slow in the past several months. In fact, headline CPI has barely budged since the central bank stopped hiking, though core, which policymakers consider a better barometer of longer-term trends, has fallen about a percentage point.



While the Fed watches the CPI and other indicators, it focuses most on the Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditures index, sometimes referred to as the PCE deflator. That showed headline inflation running at 2.5% and the core rate at 2.8% in February.



For their part, markets have grown nervous about the state of inflation and how it will affect rate policy. After scoring big gains to start the year, stocks have backed off over the past week or so, which have seen sharp swings as investors tried to make sense of the conflicting signals.



Earlier this year, traders in the fed funds futures market were pricing in the likelihood that the central bank would start reducing rates in March and continue for as many as seven cuts before the end of 2024. The latest pricing indicates that the cuts won’t start until at least June and not total more than three, assuming quarter-percentage point increments, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch calculations.



“I don’t see a whole lot here that is going to move things magically the way they want to go,” North said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>What to watch</h2>



There will be a few key areas to watch in Wednesday’s report.



Beyond the headline numbers, trends in items such as shelter, airfares and vehicle prices will be important. Those areas have been bellwethers during the current economic cycle, and moves either way could suggest longer-term trends.



Economists at Goldman Sachs expect outright declines across air travel-related items as well as vehicle sticker prices, and see smaller shelter cost increases, which make up about one-third of the CPI weighting. A New York Fed survey released Monday, however, showed a sharp uptick in expectations for rental costs over the next year, which is bad news for policymakers who frequently have cited decelerating housing costs as the cornerstone to their easing inflation thesis.



Similarly, the National Federation of Independent Business survey for March, released Tuesday, showed confidence among small businesses at its lowest level in more than 11 years, with owners citing inflation as their top concern.



“Inflation is cumulative, and that’s why prices still feel high,” North said. “People still can’t believe how high prices are.”



Gas prices also could play an important role in the CPI release after rising 3.8% in February. Though the gasoline index is relatively unchanged over the past two years, it’s still up more than 70% from April 2020 when the brief Covid-driven recession ended. Food is up about 23% during the same period.

107139885-1666645552719-abc1

A crucial report Wednesday is expected to show little progress against inflation

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/VYRWOXIFAFINVMT3XJTBLOGTZQ-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-475173" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/VYRWOXIFAFINVMT3XJTBLOGTZQ-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/VYRWOXIFAFINVMT3XJTBLOGTZQ-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/VYRWOXIFAFINVMT3XJTBLOGTZQ-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/VYRWOXIFAFINVMT3XJTBLOGTZQ-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/VYRWOXIFAFINVMT3XJTBLOGTZQ-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/VYRWOXIFAFINVMT3XJTBLOGTZQ-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">FILE PHOTO: Anna Bjerde, Managing Director for Operations of The World Bank, attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S., November 15, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo</figcaption></figure>



WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;The World Bank Group&nbsp;unveiled a&nbsp;framework&nbsp;on Tuesday&nbsp;for measuring the results of its development work with 22&nbsp;indicators&nbsp;in what a top official called an important advance in the bank&#8217;s push to increase transparency and accountability.



Anna Bjerde, the World Bank&#8217;s managing director of operations, said&nbsp;the&nbsp;scorecard would allow its shareholders and the people it serves&nbsp;to better&nbsp;see, measure and track the impact of the bank&#8217;s lending and grants.



&#8220;A vision and mission are really great, but unless you can translate it into actions and measure it, then it&#8217;s quite aspirational, and we also want it to be operational,&#8221; Bjerde told&nbsp;Reuters.



The&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;and other major shareholders have pushed the World Bank&nbsp;to improve how it helps&nbsp;countries address issues such as climate change and pandemic preparedness.



It has already added the phrase &#8220;livable planet&#8221; to its mission statement and reduced the number of its projects to focus on more programmatic and transformational projects.



The scorecard includes 22 global indicators &#8211; down from 150 on a previous instrument &#8211; for poverty, prosperity and a livable planet, as well as themes such as gender equality, inclusion of youth, and how people live in fragile, conflict-affected areas.



It will enable a closer look at development outcomes by adopting a more &#8220;people-centric&#8221; approach, Bjerde said.



For the first time, the work of all World Bank institutions &#8211; including the International Finance Corp and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development &#8211; will be tracked through the same set of indicators.



“It’s a real game changer, providing a new guidepost that our teams can rally around, and provides full visibility on how well we are tackling the most difficult challenges like poverty, climate change, fragility and food insecurity,&#8221; Bjerde said.



The bank sees the scorecard as part of its push to focus on outcomes, not inputs, for instance by measuring the number of people that actually use financial services, not just how many have access.



The bank is still working out the detailed methodologies to calculate the scores in each of the 22 indicators, she said, with half to be released in June and the rest in October.



The first batch will include data on how many people have access to electricity worldwide, and social safety net programs.



The data will include transparent data broken down by gender, regions, age and whether people are in fragile and conflicted-affected countries.



Drilling in like that will allow the bank, its shareholders and clients to &#8220;see how we&#8217;re doing but also where we need to double down,&#8221; she said.



(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Josie Kao)

FILE PHOTO: APEC Summit in San Francisco

World Bank unveils new scorecard to measure accountability

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Y4ZRO6HDHJLMJN6BQVVOUBSW3M-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-474957" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Y4ZRO6HDHJLMJN6BQVVOUBSW3M-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Y4ZRO6HDHJLMJN6BQVVOUBSW3M-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Y4ZRO6HDHJLMJN6BQVVOUBSW3M-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Y4ZRO6HDHJLMJN6BQVVOUBSW3M-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Y4ZRO6HDHJLMJN6BQVVOUBSW3M-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Y4ZRO6HDHJLMJN6BQVVOUBSW3M-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows the headquarters of the Central Bank of Brazil (C) in Brasilia January 20, 2014. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino/File Photo</figcaption></figure>



KAMPALA, April 9 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Uganda&#8217;s foreign exchange reserves fell by about 12% between June 2023 and January this year because of external debt payments and the central bank&#8217;s inability to buy foreign currency due to a slide in the Ugandan shilling&nbsp;UGX=.



Reserves dropped from $4.07 billion in June to about $3.58 billion at the end of January, reaching 3.4 months of import cover excluding oil project-related imports, the central bank said on Tuesday in its State of the Economy report.



The Bank of Uganda targets foreign exchange cover of 4 months of imports, excluding oil projects, an International Monetary Fund staff report published in March said.



Uganda&#8217;s rising public debt, more than half of which is external, has been eating up a growing share of revenues and hitting other spending priorities like education and health.



Total public debt stood at $24.7 billion, 60% of which was external, at the end of 2023, finance ministry figures show.



The Bank of Uganda said foreign reserves could rise due to expected inflows from budget support loans, but that the outlook for the country&#8217;s balance of payments was fragile.



&#8220;Delayed disbursement of expected budget support loans, higher-than-projected government expenditure on imports, and &#8230; tight global and domestic financial market conditions may disrupt the reserve build-up programme,&#8221; it said.



(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Alexander Winning and Alexander Smith)

FILE PHOTO: Aerial view shows the headquarters of the Central Bank of Brazil in Brasilia

Ugandan foreign exchange reserves drop 12% due to debt payments

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/107384081-1709831185690-gettyimages-2058827167-powell_banking_402_030724-820x461.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-463959" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/107384081-1709831185690-gettyimages-2058827167-powell_banking_402_030724-820x461.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/107384081-1709831185690-gettyimages-2058827167-powell_banking_402_030724-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/107384081-1709831185690-gettyimages-2058827167-powell_banking_402_030724-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/107384081-1709831185690-gettyimages-2058827167-powell_banking_402_030724-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/107384081-1709831185690-gettyimages-2058827167-powell_banking_402_030724-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/107384081-1709831185690-gettyimages-2058827167-powell_banking_402_030724.jpeg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies during the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing titled “The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress,” in Dirksen Building on Thursday, March 7, 2024.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



The U.S. Federal Reserve is determined not to reduce interest rates too soon — and some economists say recent data has pushed a summer cut completely off the table.



Friday’s jobs report reiterated the seemingly unwavering strength of the U.S. labor market and suggested further need for Fed caution. All eyes will now be on Wednesday’s consumer price index, after February’s annual inflation rate of 3.2% came in slightly higher than expected.



It comes as a growing number of market participants have raised the possibility of no rate cuts at all this year, including Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari who said last week that no reductions were a possible scenario if inflation continued to move sideways.



George Lagarias, chief economist at&nbsp;Mazars, told CNBC on Monday that rate cuts in the summer were now looking much less likely.



“Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw less rate cuts and pushed more towards the end of the year,” he told “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday.



“This is a strong economy. Make no mistake, it is backed by debt and somewhat by overburdened credit cards, but it is a strong economy. So the Fed will struggle to find the case to cut rates soon.”



Market pricing reflects the ongoing uncertainty, with the probability of a rate cut now under 50% for both June and July, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool — significantly lower than at the start of the month.



“The Fed has been punishing itself ever since 2021 when ‘team transitory’ ostensibly got it wrong. &#8230; What they feel is that they can’t get it wrong again, which means that they’re more likely to err on the side of caution,” Lagarias added.



Despite this, he said it remains “very likely” that there will be rate cuts this year.



“They do have some room to cut, but they don’t want to get it wrong. They do not want to be the Fed that cut rates as inflation kept beating expectations. So they want to see more data toward the right direction and they are willing to wait,” Lagarias added.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-no-rate-cuts"><a></a>No rate cuts?</h2>



Speculation that there could be no interest rate reductions this year has been growing, although economists remain divided.



Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, said last month that he doesn’t expect any cuts as the U.S. economy is “simply not slowing down,” and top U.S. asset manager Vanguard has no rate reductions as its base case for the year.



Whereas former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson told CNBC last week he sees a 10%-15% chance of no cuts this year.



Other analysts and economists are still backing the Fed’s own signaling in March that it expects three quarter-percentage point cuts this year.



Based on current growth and inflation forecasts, Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jan Hatzius told CNBC on Friday he would “expect some rate cuts based on what Chair Powell and other Fed officials have said.”



“The timing of that of course is going to depend on near-term data, on the reaction function from the Fed but under our forecast I would be quite surprised if we didn’t get rate cuts this year. Quite surprised.”

107384081-1709831185690-gettyimages-2058827167-powell_banking_402_030724

‘They can’t get it wrong again’: Economists are increasingly uncertain about Fed rate cuts this year

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="571" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/YNH43WBRZBKVHDDQ3KLQGQUX2E-820x571.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-474865" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/YNH43WBRZBKVHDDQ3KLQGQUX2E-820x571.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/YNH43WBRZBKVHDDQ3KLQGQUX2E-300x209.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/YNH43WBRZBKVHDDQ3KLQGQUX2E-129x90.jpg 129w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/YNH43WBRZBKVHDDQ3KLQGQUX2E-768x535.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/YNH43WBRZBKVHDDQ3KLQGQUX2E-1536x1070.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/YNH43WBRZBKVHDDQ3KLQGQUX2E-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">FILE PHOTO: A girl carries a container of water at a coltan mine in Kamatare, Masisi territory, North Kivu Province of Democratic Republic of Congo, December 1, 2018. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo</figcaption></figure>



JOHANNESBURG/WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;The U.S. must boost commercial ties with African countries to curb reliance on China for supplies of critical minerals, a Washington-based think tank said on Tuesday.



&#8220;U.S. economic and national security depend on securing a reliable supply of critical minerals, including from Africa,&#8221; the United States Institute of Peace said in a report.



The U.S. is almost 100% reliant on &#8220;foreign entities of concern,&#8221; mainly China, for key critical minerals, it said, and must come up with own sources of supply to avoid being shorthanded and vulnerable to China&#8217;s export curbs.



Western mining companies are lagging Chinese rivals in the race to tap Africa&#8217;s abundant mineral resources, key to sectors from electric vehicle manufacturing to defence industries.



To counter China&#8217;s head start in Africa, Washington must roll out &#8220;more vigorous commercial diplomacy with a keen eye toward building critical minerals partnership in Africa,&#8221; the 76-page report said.



One option for the U.S. would be to increase commercial diplomacy in countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, the world&#8217;s No. 1 cobalt supplier, and Zambia, Africa&#8217;s second-largest copper producer, it said.



The competition for securing minerals in Africa is heating up as cash-rich Middle East firms join the race.



While Western mining companies still see hurdles in investing in countries such as Congo, which lacks vital infrastructure such as roads and adequate electricity, Chinese miners have strengthened their grip in the country and are broadening investment throughout Africa.



The International Development Finance Corporation said in February it could scale up project financing in Africa to help reduce the risk of investing in countries including Congo that some investors still perceive as high risk.



Unlocking U.S. investment in Congo could be helped by reopening its consulate in Lubumbashi that closed in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War, Tuesday&#8217;s USIP report said.



The government also needs to prioritize full development of a memorandum of understanding with Congo and Zambia which could help guide U.S. private investors across the battery metals supply chain, it said.



The U.S. has stepped in to back the Lobito Corridor, a rail link from the central African copper belt that&#8217;s key to export of metals through Angola&#8217;s Lobito port.



The U.S. is &#8220;simply not on, or even near, par in competing with China&#8221; for critical minerals investment and diplomacy in Africa, and needs to take a vigorous approach, USIP said.



Jose Fernandez, the U.S. State Department&#8217;s under secretary for economic growth, energy, and the environment said last month the U.S. holds regular talks with Congo state miner Gecamines.



Still, the U.S. government is unlikely to match the resource levels and the mining ecosystem that China wields in winning mining contracts, USIP said, though &#8220;concerted U.S. efforts to land U.S. mining investment in Africa can succeed.&#8221;



(Reporting by Felix Njini in Johannesburg, Ernest Scheyder in Houston and Daphne Psaledakis in WashingtonEditing by Peter Graff)

FILE PHOTO: A girl carries a container of water at a coltan mine in Kamatare, Masisi territory, North Kivu Province of Democratic Republic of Congo

US must boost Africa ties to secure key minerals, report says

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="595" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/5XI6ICZ6JRKC7A43NJRHTXVLBI-820x595.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-474665" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/5XI6ICZ6JRKC7A43NJRHTXVLBI-820x595.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/5XI6ICZ6JRKC7A43NJRHTXVLBI-300x218.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/5XI6ICZ6JRKC7A43NJRHTXVLBI-124x90.jpg 124w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/5XI6ICZ6JRKC7A43NJRHTXVLBI-768x557.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/5XI6ICZ6JRKC7A43NJRHTXVLBI-1536x1114.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/5XI6ICZ6JRKC7A43NJRHTXVLBI-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">FILE PHOTO: A wilted maize crop is seen in Mumijo, Buhera district east of the capital Harare, Zimbabwe, March 16, 2024. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo/File Photo</figcaption></figure>



HARARE, April 8 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Mandisireyi Mbirinyu, 70, and her 13-year-old grandson Tinotenda sit in the blistering sun, shelling the few maize cobs they managed to retrieve from land parched by a drought ravaging southern Africa.



&#8220;The grain I have is only enough for the next two months. It is going to be hunger from here on,&#8221; Mbirinyu told Reuters at her farm in Shamva, 90 km (56 miles) north of Zimbabwe&#8217;s capital Harare.



Mbirinyu considers herself lucky. She at least managed to harvest a few bags of maize from her sparsely irrigated plot &#8211; most crops around this area were a write-off.



Southern Africa is reeling from its worst drought in years, owing to a combination of naturally occurring El Nino &#8211; when an abnormal warming of the waters in the eastern Pacific radiates heat into the air leading to hotter weather across the world &#8211; and higher average temperatures produced by greenhouse gas emissions.



Weather across the world produced record-breaking extremes in 2023 as climate change amplified the impacts of El Nino.



A study in October last year even suggested that climate change may now be as significant a factor in triggering El Nino conditions as natural causes like sun rays.



Aid agency Oxfam warned last week that more than 24 million people in southern Africa face hunger, malnutrition and water scarcity because of the drought.



Last season Mbirinyu harvested 14 tonnes of maize and sold some to the national grain company; this year she&#8217;s wondering whether there will be enough to feed her own family.



In neighbouring Malawi, crop theft has become a problem as food sources dry up. In Kuntaja village, near the airport of the commercial capital Blantyre, Osten James makes a living for his family of five by guarding other people&#8217;s maize gardens, after his own were torched by heat.



&#8220;The owners are trying to save the little maize that survived the heat from thieves,&#8221; said James.



Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe have all declared a state of disaster.



&#8220;The maize has failed,&#8221; Ulaliya Radson, a Malawian farmer said. &#8220;Last year I harvested 10 bags and as you can see in this field, I won&#8217;t even manage half of that,&#8221; she added, gesturing towards a parched patch.



(Reporting by Nyasha Chingono in Shamva and Frank Phiri in Blantyre; Editing by Tim Cocks, William Maclean)

FILE PHOTO: Villagers collecting food aid in rural Zimbabwe

Southern Africa faces hunger as el Nino drought kills crops

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="600" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/7EUCZ6RKSVIQDGLZGVKYD2BO74-820x600.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-474643" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/7EUCZ6RKSVIQDGLZGVKYD2BO74-820x600.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/7EUCZ6RKSVIQDGLZGVKYD2BO74-300x220.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/7EUCZ6RKSVIQDGLZGVKYD2BO74-123x90.jpg 123w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/7EUCZ6RKSVIQDGLZGVKYD2BO74-768x562.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/7EUCZ6RKSVIQDGLZGVKYD2BO74-1536x1124.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/7EUCZ6RKSVIQDGLZGVKYD2BO74-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A woman walks past the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe building in Harare, Zimbabwe March 1, 2024. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo/FILE PHOTO</figcaption></figure>



HARARE, April 8 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Zimbabwe&#8217;s new gold-backed currency started trading on Monday amid doubts that the country&#8217;s third such re-launch in a decade will have any more success in ending repeated, crippling bouts of high inflation.



The Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) was announced on Friday by the central bank with an initial rate of 13.56 to $1, replacing the Real Time Gross Settlement Dollar (RTGS), which had lost about 80% of its value this year and had been trading at 28,720 to $1 before the change.



Bank balances were transferred into the new currency over the weekend while their customers will have 21 days to do so, and the new banknotes will enter circulation at the end of this month, according to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.



The RTGS, also known as the Zimdollar&nbsp;ZWL=, was launched in 2019 after a decade of dollarisation, which included so-called bond coins and bond notes, notionally pegged to the U.S. dollar and introduced in 2014 and 2016 respectively.



However, the Zimdollar struggled to gain trust and this year&#8217;s precipitous slide pushed annual inflation above 55% in March&nbsp;ZMBCPY=ECI, raising fears of a return to the 2007-2009 era of hyperinflation under former president Robert Mugabe.



&#8220;There was dire need for drastic change in the Zimbabwean monetary system,&#8221; Jacques Nel at research firm Oxford Economics said in a note to clients.



The central bank statement on Friday correctly identified the most pressing problems, said Nel.



&#8220;A lack of credibility in both the domestic currency and the framework that governed it &#8211; but it is that same lack of credibility that casts doubt over the effectiveness of these new measures,&#8221; he added.



Commercial banks were using the new official exchange rate on Monday, according to Reuters enquiries. It was not immediately clear whether the currency, which the central bank described as &#8220;structured&#8221; and &#8220;anchored by a composite basket of foreign currency and precious metals (mainly gold) held as reserves&#8221;, would be able to retain this value.



Nor was it given that companies and citizens would accept it as a form of payment and a store of value. Some 80% to 85% of transactions are currently carried out in foreign currencies, according to the central bank.



&#8220;Zimbabwe has an insufficient $285 million of hard currency and gold reserves,&#8221; Hasnain Malaik of research firm Tellimer said in a note. &#8220;To fix the economy, Zimbabwe needs to address these root causes of its problems.&#8221;



These problems include central bank funding of government, unsustainable fiscal deficits, debt arrears and Western sanctions, and Malaik said it was not clear whether any would be addressed under the current ruling ZANU-PF party.



(Reporting by Nyasha Chingono and Rachel Savage, Editing by Karin Strohecker and Tomasz Janowski)

A woman walks past the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe building in Harare

Zimbabwe’s new ZiG currency starts trading, credibility doubts linger

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="540" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DIWUE6H53FK55N7IANRDIEK5BA-820x540.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-474616" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DIWUE6H53FK55N7IANRDIEK5BA-820x540.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DIWUE6H53FK55N7IANRDIEK5BA-300x197.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DIWUE6H53FK55N7IANRDIEK5BA-137x90.jpg 137w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DIWUE6H53FK55N7IANRDIEK5BA-768x506.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DIWUE6H53FK55N7IANRDIEK5BA-1536x1011.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DIWUE6H53FK55N7IANRDIEK5BA-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">FILE PHOTO: Street vendors are seen serving customers in Camama, on the outskirts of the capital Luanda, in Angola, August 20, 2022. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo</figcaption></figure>



JOHANNESBURG, April 8 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Economic growth is set to rise for the next two years in Sub-Saharan Africa, but not enough to make a significant dent in poverty on the continent, the World Bank said in a report on Monday.



The region&#8217;s economy is set to expand 3.4% this year and 3.8% in 2024 as falling inflation boosts private consumption, up from 2.4% in 2023, the World Bank said in its biannual Africa&#8217;s Pulse report.



Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were hit hard by the shocks of COVID-19 and Russia&#8217;s war in Ukraine, which pushed up inflation at the same time as rising global interest rates made borrowing prohibitively expensive. Drought and conflict have also affected swathes of the region.



&#8220;Growth is set to bounce back in Sub-Saharan Africa but the recovery is still fragile,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;The pace of economic expansion in the region remains slow and insufficient to have a significant effect on poverty reduction.&#8221;



&#8220;Per capita GDP growth of 1% is associated with poverty reduction of only 1% in the region, compared to 2.5% in the rest of the world.&#8221;



South Africa&#8217;s growth rate is forecast to double in 2024, but just to 1.2%, while Angola&#8217;s is set to pick up to 2.8% from 0.8% last year, driven mainly by the non-oil sector amid falling oil production.



The East African Community region, in contrast, is expected to grow 5.3% this year, due to strong growth in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.



West Africa&#8217;s biggest economy, Nigeria, is forecast to grow 3.3% this year, below its long-term average.



Zambia defaulted on its external debt in 2020, followed by Ghana in 2022 and Ethiopia late last year.



Sub-Saharan Africa&#8217;s public debt-to-GDP ratio is forecast to fall from 61% in 2023 to 57% this year, but more than half of countries are still in or at high risk of debt distress, the report said.



It noted that external borrowing was still more expensive than before the pandemic, despite costs starting to fall.



&#8220;Typically when countries are in these situations, another big shock could send a lot of these countries into these types of financial crises and therefore default,&#8221; Andrew Dabalen, the World Bank&#8217;s chief Africa economist, said in a press briefing, but added, &#8220;We can&#8217;t tell if there&#8217;s going to be another default or not.&#8221;



(Reporting by Rachel Savage; Editing by Sharon Singleton)

FILE PHOTO: Street vendors are seen serving customers in Luanda

Sub-Saharan Africa growth not enough to dent poverty, says World Bank

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GettyImages-1701923070-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-474613" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GettyImages-1701923070-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GettyImages-1701923070-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GettyImages-1701923070-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GettyImages-1701923070-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GettyImages-1701923070-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GettyImages-1701923070-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co., during a Bloomberg Television interview on the sidelines of the JPMorgan Tech Stars Leadership Forum in London, UK, on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023. &#8220;Your children are going to live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology,&#8221; Dimon said. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Jamie Dimon, the veteran CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, said he was convinced that artificial intelligence will have a profound impact on society.



In his annual letter to shareholders released Monday, Dimon chose AI as the first topic in his update of issues facing the biggest U.S. bank by assets — ahead of geopolitical risks, recent acquisitions and regulatory matters.



“While we do not know the full effect or the precise rate at which AI will change our business — or how it will affect society at large — we are completely convinced the consequences will be extraordinary,” Dimon said.



The impact will be “possibly as transformational as some of the major technological inventions of the past several hundred years: Think the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, computing and the Internet.”



Dimon’s letter, read widely in the business world because of his status as one of the most successful leaders in finance, hit a wide variety of topics. The CEO said that he had ongoing concerns about inflationary pressures and reiterated his warning that the world may be entering the riskiest era in geopolitics since World War II.



But his focus on AI, first mentioned in this format in a 2017 shareholder letter, stood out. The technology, which has gained in prominence since ChatGPT became a viral sensation in late 2022, can generate human-sounding responses to queries. Enthusiasm for AI has fueled the meteoric rise in chipmaker Nvidia and helped propel tech names to new heights.  



JPMorgan now has more than 2,000 AI and machine learning employees and data scientists, Dimon said. But the technology could ultimately touch all of the bank’s roughly 310,000 employees, assisting some workers while replacing others.



“Over time, we anticipate that our use of AI has the potential to augment virtually every job, as well as impact our workforce composition,” Dimon said. “It may reduce certain job categories or roles, but it may create others as well.”



This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon Interview

Jamie Dimon says AI may be as impactful on humanity as printing press, electricity and computers

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="598" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/100432242-larry-ellison-ceo-oracle-getty-820x598.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-474536" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/100432242-larry-ellison-ceo-oracle-getty-820x598.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/100432242-larry-ellison-ceo-oracle-getty-300x219.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/100432242-larry-ellison-ceo-oracle-getty-123x90.jpg 123w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/100432242-larry-ellison-ceo-oracle-getty-768x560.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/100432242-larry-ellison-ceo-oracle-getty-1536x1120.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/100432242-larry-ellison-ceo-oracle-getty-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Every tech company is talking up its AI opportunity. Oracle is no exception. But during an earnings call in March, Oracle’s Larry Ellison laid out a future market opportunity focused on a major customer that investors may think about less often that Fortune 500 companies.



The Oracle founder, former CEO and current chairman and chief technology officer, sees national and state government applications being run on platforms like Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to a much greater degree than today, and indicated that it’s starting to happen in a variety of ways.



“We talk about, you know, winning business with companies. For the first time, we’re beginning to win business for countries,” Ellison said. “We have a number of countries where we’re negotiating sovereign regions with the national government.”



Major tech companies vying for massive government contracts in the cloud are nothing new. Microsoft and Amazon had a lengthy battle over a cloud deal with the Department of Defense, and both those AI players as well as Oracle and Google ended up all in on a $9 billion DoD contract in 2022.



But Ellison went further in his prediction when speaking with analysts on the recent earnings call, saying “Every government, pretty much every government, is going to want a sovereign cloud and a dedicated region for that government.”



Oracle, which works with Nvidia and Microsoft on generative AI capabilities, has already helped use cloud tech to cut red tape for countries. One example Ellison gave was Albania. It is trying to ascend to the European Union with the help of chatGPT, with the generative AI helping to decipher and summarize its laws and aid the country in what it needs to change in order to be compliant with E.U. regulations.



“It took Serbia eight years to harmonize their laws to be able to join the E.U.,” Ellison said. “Albania is facing the same thing, but with generative AI, we can read the entire corpus of the Albanian laws and&nbsp;actually harmonize their laws with the EU in probably more like 18 months to two years.”



Some analysts are skeptical of Ellison’s talk as being anything more than typical C-suite rallying for a key business unit. Oracle shares are up about 21% YTD, but Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow expressed concern about lower OCI growth during its latest earnings, which could “worry investors, as this is the main investment story.”



A version of future featuring cloud services and artificial intelligence-powered solutions can make government more efficient. Ellison said for starters, redundancy is a focus for government, in the case of disaster and disaster recovery. But it’s also moving into health care information and internet access projects.



Countries including Serbia are standardizing on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and using generative AI for processes like automating health care. Deals related to delivery of internet services in partnership with Elon Musk’s Starlink to remote areas are taking place in Kenya and Rwanda, where OCI and Starlink are mapping rural farms to see which crops are growing in what area, and if they are getting enough nutrients like nitrogen and water. “These maps are AI-assisted, help them plan their agricultural output and predict their agricultural output, predict markets, the logistics of the agricultural output, doing all of all of those things as next-generation national applications,” Ellison said.



Food security, rural school and rural hospital internet access, are other examples of what Ellison said are among the “all sorts of interesting new AI applications out there that you’ve probably never heard of before, at least I hadn’t heard of before until these last 12 months now that we’ve worked on and we’re now in the process of delivering.”



He also mentioned automation of vaccination programs, and other healthcare program “across the board.”



“We’re living in a world where like data and information is the gold of the future,” said Dan Gardner, CEO of digital strategy agency Code and Theory. “If the government can get access and action on that their data faster, why would we want to slow that down? We want that to be as efficient as possible. A lot of that is like mundane human resources, that maybe those people could be doing something else that is way more valuable.”



Cloud and generative AI applications allowing countries to give rural areas internet access could increase educational opportunities and create more economic value. It could also allow citizens to have more insight into government processes, said Tapan Parikh, Cornell University associate professor. “One thing technology’s always been good at is potentially making bureaucracies more efficient, or at least more transparent internally,” he said.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-black-mirror-governments">‘Black Mirror’ governments</h3>



But the push to move more government processes to the cloud is also opening the door to new risks, especially as countries trust newly developed generative AI systems. While they may make processes faster than ever, there are bound to be mistakes as the technology develops and could make citizen data accessible to cyber criminals. “We shouldn’t use these technologies as an excuse to not maintain oversight and control over political processes,” Parikh said. “Certainly, I think that’s a very important thing, particularly when you’re dealing with countries that may not have the same kind of governance capacity.” Oracle did not respond to a request for additional comment on Ellison’s earnings call discussion.



“There’s the ‘Black Mirror’ bad side of it: Big Brother, data wars, AI warfare and all that stuff,” Garder said. “As far as like removing red tape and being more efficient and getting better use out of crops across the country, that’s incredible. That’s the multiplier of humanity that could really improve because of AI.”



AI raises a host of concerns.



Gardner pointed to the proliferation of more generative content in an election year around the world and all the issues related to tech-enabled interference. “Maybe it’s not like chips on the ground. But it’s data security, authentication of who you are, who governments are, what content you’re viewing, all the connection points between financial systems, and AI governance. Using AI as a tool of destruction is quite scary.”&nbsp;



“No big government in the world can afford to move all of their services and especially critical ones like defense, taxes, health care, completely into the cloud and into the hands of gen AI,”&nbsp;said Simone Bohnenberger, chief product officer at cloud company Phrase. “It’s just not in the realm of, I think it’s not responsible to do that. The potential risks outweigh the benefits of doing that.“ OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, is mostly trained on existing content on the internet. That could pose a problem, especially when text from lesser known languages like Albanian need to be analyzed, Bohnenberger said. “If you look at the World Wide Web or the internet, the vast majority of content there’s English, I think a quarter of the content is English, followed by Chinese,” she said. “Albanian is a minority. It’s very questionable for me how well that actually works for a small country like Albania and like an outlier language, because there’s just not much data you can train a model on. And if you don’t have much data, then the outputs will be very messy.”



Then there’s security and data risks with allowing foreign companies access to citizen data, Parikh said. Even the U.S., with all its resources, has been vulnerable to data hacks, including a recent February incident with contractor CGI Federal which exposed personally identifiable information on employees. The recent battle between the U.S. and China over TikTok is an example of how control of sensitive consumer data can be interjected into geopolitics. “I think certainly that’s a concern going forward for countries who are working with vendors from different countries,” Parikh said.

100432242-larry-ellison-ceo-oracle-getty

Oracle’s Larry Ellison thinks every government will want to build a ‘sovereign’ AI cloud in the future

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="573" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/EU77SXNC7VKF5PUJALHFIPSWDU-820x573.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-460717" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/EU77SXNC7VKF5PUJALHFIPSWDU-820x573.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/EU77SXNC7VKF5PUJALHFIPSWDU-300x210.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/EU77SXNC7VKF5PUJALHFIPSWDU-129x90.jpg 129w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/EU77SXNC7VKF5PUJALHFIPSWDU-768x537.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/EU77SXNC7VKF5PUJALHFIPSWDU-1536x1074.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/EU77SXNC7VKF5PUJALHFIPSWDU-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">FILE PHOTO: A MultiChoice logo is displayed outside the company&#8217;s building in Cape Town, South Africa February 2, 2024. REUTERS/Esa Alexander/File Photo</figcaption></figure>



JOHANNESBURG, April 8 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;French media group Vivendi&#8217;s&nbsp;VIV.PA&nbsp;Canal+ made an all-cash mandatory offer on Monday to buy all the shares of South African broadcaster MultiChoice&nbsp;MCGJ.J&nbsp;it does not already own for 35 billion rand ($1.9 billion), both companies said.



That offer at 125 rand per share follows an indicative offer of 105 rand made by Canal+ on Feb. 1, which MultiChoice rejected as significantly undervaluing the company.



The need to make a mandatory offer was triggered by Canal+, MultiChoice&#8217;s biggest shareholder, subsequently raising its holding in the firm above the 35% threshold. Its new offer values MultiChoice, in which it now owns a 36.6% stake, at about 55 billion rand, according to Reuters calculations.



By 0759 GMT, shares in MultiChoice were up 3.7% at 116 rand.



The deal would create a pan-African broadcasting powerhouse with about 31.5 million subscribers across over 50 countries, able to put African content to global audiences as well as compete on an international scale.



The French media company has broad reach in French-speaking African nations, while MultiChoice has a stronger presence in English-speaking countries, including South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.



Canal+ said it believes the competitive landscape for Africa&#8217;s media and entertainment industry will undergo further profound changes as the continent rapidly adopts broadband and mobile internet. Smartphone adoption is also rising.



&#8220;A combined group would be better positioned to address key structural challenges and opportunities resulting from the progressive digitalisation and globalisation of the media and entertainment sector,&#8221; the companies said.



MultiChoice&#8217;s independent board constituted for the deal will now consider the bid.



Canal+ reserves the right to buy more MultiChoice shares in the market during the course of the offer. Should the French company buy these shares at more than 125 rand each, it is obliged to increase the offer price, according to the statement.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-regulatory-hurdle">REGULATORY HURDLE</h2>



For the deal to be successful, the French broadcaster will need to navigate the country&#8217;s stringent Black economic ownership requirements and restrictions on foreign media ownership, which caps voting rights at 20%.



Maxime Saada, chairman and CEO of Canal+ Group, told Reuters there are workable solutions around that which &#8220;of course will require us to have local partners&#8221;.



Last month Bloomberg reported that billionaire Patrice Motsepe could join Canal+&#8217;s bid.



The companies said they intend to comply with all applicable laws and will provide further details in this regard.



($1 = 18.7119 rand)



(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by Tom Hogue, Miral Fahmy and Jan Harvey)

FILE PHOTO: MultiChoice logo is displayed outside the company in Cape Town

Vivendi’s Canal+ makes mandatory buyout offer for South Africa’s MultiChoice

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="575" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2YFSNLSNFRP7VNWQPEPCOAWUMU-1-820x575.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-454022" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2YFSNLSNFRP7VNWQPEPCOAWUMU-1-820x575.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2YFSNLSNFRP7VNWQPEPCOAWUMU-1-300x210.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2YFSNLSNFRP7VNWQPEPCOAWUMU-1-128x90.jpg 128w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2YFSNLSNFRP7VNWQPEPCOAWUMU-1-768x539.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2YFSNLSNFRP7VNWQPEPCOAWUMU-1-1536x1078.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2YFSNLSNFRP7VNWQPEPCOAWUMU-1-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">FILE PHOTO: A man shows off Zimbabwean currency notes outside a grocery store in Harare, Zimbabwe, March 17, 2022. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo/File Photo</figcaption></figure>



Zimbabwe says it will re-launch its currency for a sixth time next week, in a bid to reign-in inflation after the latest collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar.



New Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mushayavanhu said the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG), would replace the last incarnation of the Zimbabwe dollar, and would be backed by a select group of foreign currencies, gold and other precious metals the country produces. The new currency will be introduced next Monday at 13.56 per U.S. dollar.



&#8220;With effect from 5 April 2024, banks shall convert the current Zimbabwe dollar balances into the new currency which shall be called Zimbabwe Gold to foster simplicity, certainty, and predictability in monetary and financial affairs,&#8221; the central bank said in a monetary policy statement. &#8220;The new currency will co-circulate with other foreign currencies in the economy.&#8221;



Zimbabwe’s dollar had lost almost three quarters of its value against the dollar since a relaunch last year, stoking inflation which was measured at 55.3 percent in March versus 47.6 percent the month before. The country has battled to tame inflation since it hit a record 500 billion percent in 2008 when it was forced to abandon the Zimbabwe dollar.



Mushayavanhu replaced John Mangudya as governor last month.



To protect the value of the new currency, Mushayavanhu said he would limit central bank lending to the government &#8212; a key source of the inflation that engulfed the economy in 2008 &#8212; and ensure that reserve money would be fully backed by the country’s equivalent gold and foreign currency reserves.



A strict monetary policy would also be implemented he said, setting the new benchmark rate at 20 percent, down from the current rate of 130 percent. Exporters would be requested to surrender half of their forex receipts for the foreign exchange market with the balance going to the government.



&#8220;The Bank will use 50% of the foreign currency proceeds from surrender requirements for strategic interventions in the foreign exchange interbank market,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The remaining foreign currency will be available to satisfy the Government&#8217;s foreign currency obligations in exchange for ZiG and to build foreign exchange reserves for the Reserve Bank.&#8221;

FILE PHOTO: Zimbabwe’s poor feel the impact of far away Ukraine war

Zimbabwe relaunches currency in latest inflation fight

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Stock-value-rising-and-falling-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-404443" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Stock-value-rising-and-falling-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Stock-value-rising-and-falling-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Stock-value-rising-and-falling-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Stock-value-rising-and-falling.jpg 1254w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Macro view of a screen of trading terminal with abstract financial graph and digits. Trading and forex concept. 3D Rendering</figcaption></figure>



April 5 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Emerging market stocks dipped on Friday, tracking overnight weakness on Wall Street, as hawkish commentary from Federal Reserve officials dampened risk sentiment and tensions in the Middle East kept investors on edge.



The MSCI&#8217;s index for emerging market stocks&nbsp;.MSCIEF&nbsp;fell 0.3% but was still on track for marginal weekly gains.



Emerging market debt saw its first weekly inflow for eight weeks and EM stocks saw inflows of $3.8 billion in the week ended on Wednesday, according to a note by BofA Global Research.



The currencies index&nbsp;.MIEM00000CUS&nbsp;was flat by 0900 GMT.



&#8220;The risk-reward profile of global risk assets is not attractive,&#8221; Arthur Budaghyan, chief emerging market and China strategist for BCA Research, said in a note.



&#8220;Higher U.S. bond yields and rising oil prices might spoil the party.&#8221;



Minneapolis Fed Bank President Neel Kashkari said that at the U.S. central bank&#8217;s meeting last month he pencilled in two interest rate cuts this year &#8211; but if inflation continues to stall, none may be required by year-end.



Traders were also hesitant to take on new positions ahead of Friday&#8217;s closely-watched U.S. nonfarm payrolls report, while rising geopolitical tensions added to worries.



Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu&#8217;s comments that Israel would harm &#8220;whoever harms us or plans to harm us&#8221; stoked fears of a wider war, after its presumed air strike on Iran&#8217;s embassy in Damascus earlier this week.



The Israeli shekel&nbsp;ILS=&nbsp;jumped 0.7% against the dollar, while stocks in Tel Aviv&nbsp;.TA125&nbsp;shed 1.6%.



Meanwhile, the Hungarian forint&nbsp;EURHUF=&nbsp;led gains against the euro among Central and Eastern European peers, up 0.4% after a raft of economic data.



Hungary&#8217;s industrial output rose by an annual 1.8% in February, based on preliminary unadjusted data, compared with a 3.6% fall in January, while another survey showed calendar-adjusted retail sales rose by an annual 1.1% in February following a 0.6% rise in January.



The forint and Poland&#8217;s zloty&nbsp;EURPLN=&nbsp;were on track for their second straight week of gains.



Hong Kong&#8217;s Hang Seng index&nbsp;.HSI&nbsp;closed nearly flat, while stocks in mainland China were closed and will resume trade on April 8.



In India, stocks were range-bound after the central bank kept its key interest rate unchanged for a seventh straight policy meeting as growth is expected to remain robust while inflation stays above the 4% target.



(Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar in Bengaluru; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Macro view of a screen of trading terminal with abstract financial graph and digits. Trading and forex concept. 3D Rendering

Stocks slip on Fed rate caution and geopolitical woes, currencies flat

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GettyImages-1240090144-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-419915" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GettyImages-1240090144-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GettyImages-1240090144-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GettyImages-1240090144-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GettyImages-1240090144-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GettyImages-1240090144-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GettyImages-1240090144-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The World Bank Group headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, April 19, 2022. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) slashed its world growth forecast by the most since the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, and projected even faster inflation, after Russia invaded Ukraine and China renewed virus lockdowns. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



ADDIS ABABA, April 5 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;The World Bank and Ethiopia have signed loan agreements totalling $1.72 billion to enhance electricity and water supply, as well as to facilitate the movement of food to markets, the finance ministry said on Friday.



The bank will allocate $523 million to expand the Horn of Africa nation&#8217;s electricity network and boost renewable energy generation, according to the ministry&#8217;s statement.



An additional $500 million will go towards two projects aimed at boosting access to food markets, including improving road networks in rural areas, the statement said.



Ethiopia, which has also experienced foreign-currency shortages, continues to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a two-year war in the northern Tigray region, and droughts, floods, and locust invasions in parts of the country



The remaining World Bank funding will be allocated to improving water supply and supporting programs in towns that employ disadvantaged youths.



Typically, World Bank loans carry low to zero interest rates and have repayment periods of 30 to 40 years.



(Reporting by Dawit Endeshaw; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Bate Felix)

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WeBuyCars marks South African market debut with share price rise

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A crucial report Wednesday is expected to show little progress against inflation

World Bank unveils new scorecard to measure accountability

Ugandan foreign exchange reserves drop 12% due to debt payments

‘They can’t get it wrong again’: Economists are increasingly uncertain about Fed rate cuts this year

US must boost Africa ties to secure key minerals, report says

Southern Africa faces hunger as el Nino drought kills crops

Zimbabwe’s new ZiG currency starts trading, credibility doubts linger

Sub-Saharan Africa growth not enough to dent poverty, says World Bank

Jamie Dimon says AI may be as impactful on humanity as printing press, electricity and computers

Oracle’s Larry Ellison thinks every government will want to build a ‘sovereign’ AI cloud in the future

Vivendi’s Canal+ makes mandatory buyout offer for South Africa’s MultiChoice

Zimbabwe relaunches currency in latest inflation fight

Stocks slip on Fed rate caution and geopolitical woes, currencies flat

World Bank loans Ethiopia $1.72 bln for power, water supply expansion

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featured

WeBuyCars marks South African market debut with share price rise

China will remain the world’s No. 1 growth driver, says the Asian Development Bank

U.S. consumer prices rose 3.5% from a year ago in March, more than expected

A crucial report Wednesday is expected to show little progress against inflation

World Bank unveils new scorecard to measure accountability

Ugandan foreign exchange reserves drop 12% due to debt payments

‘They can’t get it wrong again’: Economists are increasingly uncertain about Fed rate cuts this year

US must boost Africa ties to secure key minerals, report says

Southern Africa faces hunger as el Nino drought kills crops

Zimbabwe’s new ZiG currency starts trading, credibility doubts linger

Sub-Saharan Africa growth not enough to dent poverty, says World Bank

Jamie Dimon says AI may be as impactful on humanity as printing press, electricity and computers

Oracle’s Larry Ellison thinks every government will want to build a ‘sovereign’ AI cloud in the future

Vivendi’s Canal+ makes mandatory buyout offer for South Africa’s MultiChoice

Zimbabwe relaunches currency in latest inflation fight

Stocks slip on Fed rate caution and geopolitical woes, currencies flat

World Bank loans Ethiopia $1.72 bln for power, water supply expansion

News Tips

Advertise With Us

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