JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; Scandal-hit Steinhoff International agreed to sell its shares in furniture retailer Conforama France to Mobilux Sàrl, the parent company of retailer BUT, for a nominal amount, the company said on Wednesday.



“The disposal will secure the future of Conforama France, release the Group from its liabilities in respect of that business and generate cash to reduce of the current debt held by Conforama France,” the company said in a statement.

640px-Wallisellen_-_Conforama_2012-04-26_17-02-08_(P7000)_ShiftN

Steinhoff agrees to sell stake in Conforama France to Mobilux

WINDHOEK (Reuters) &#8211; Cash-strapped Air Namibia will have its planes grounded at midnight on Wednesday after it failed to secure enough funding to remain solvent, voiding its air licence, the transport authority said.



The airline, which operates 10 aircraft on continental and one international route, with a staff of close to 800, requires around 8 billion Namibian dollars ($469 million) to stay afloat, but only received a tenth of that in last month’s budget.



“This is scarcely 12% of the amount stated as needed by the management of the airline,” the head of the Transport Commission, Eldorette Harmse, said in a statement.



The withdrawal of its air licence means it is prohibited from operating commercial flights. It will however be permitted to undertake humanitarian evacuation and repatriation flights under its non-scheduled air services licence, which is valid for the duration of the State of Emergency due to the coronavirus.



The firm’s financial woes pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic which has ravaged air travel around the world due to the stand-still in tourism. It has failed to produce financial statements in recent years, a requirement of Namibia’s Air Services Act.[nL8N2E95IM]



In January it faced serious allegations around safety, operations, and its finances, contained in an audit report published by German airline Lufthansa. It has yet to resolve those issues.



Air Namibia also owes its main creditor, the now-defunct Belgian company ChallengeAir SA, 12.3 million euros ($13.88 million). The European firm has applied to the Namibian High Court to have the carrier liquidated.



In addition to its Windhoek-Frankfurt offering, the carrier operates busy regional routes to Cape Town, Luanda and Harare, attracting buying interest from bigger carriers like Ethopian Airlines, Lufthansa and South African Airways, according to local media reports.



$1 = 17 Namibian dollars)

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Namibia to ground national carrier’s license over cash hole

NAIROBI/GENEVA (Reuters) &#8211; Kenya’s sports and culture minister Amina Mohamed will run to be the next Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a spokesperson said on Wednesday and a WTO official confirmed.



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“For Amina Mohamed, yes we can confirm that we received her nomination from Kenya late yesterday,” a WTO official said.



The Geneva-based body is seeking a replacement for Brazil’s Roberto Azevedo who is stepping down a year early at the end of August at a critical juncture for the trade watchdog.



His successor will need to steer reforms and negotiations in the face of rising protectionism, a deep recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and growing trade tensions, notably between the United States and China.



Mohamed, a former Kenyan ambassador to the WTO and the first woman to chair the WTO’s General Council in 2005, is the sixth candidate to be officially nominated, alongside others from Egypt, Nigeria, South Korea, Mexico and Moldova.



Three of them are women. Nominations close later on Wednesday.



There is broad support for an African candidate and a woman, since neither have headed the Geneva-based body in the past, sources following the process said.

amina 2

Kenyan sports minister Amina Mohamed to bid for top WTO job

We’ve been through 9/11, load shedding and one of the worst droughts our country has ever seen.. Now in the thick of COVID-19, there is more evidence that we will learn, overcome and possibly emerge from this crisis all the better.



So here we are, on what feels like day 7 020 013 of Lockdown. Our country and the world is going through arguably one of the biggest seismic shifts of society (try say that three times fast) we’ve ever faced. And the one thing we can be sure of is that nothing will ever be the same again.



Crazy times have long, far reaching, deep societal impacts. History shows that these are mostly for the better because the result is a change in behaviour. And not just for now, forever. New fears are drummed into our heads, and we respond in a bold manner. New businesses are formed, and old ones die off. It’s the way of the world.



On the 10th of September, 2001 – you could walk up to an airline counter, buy a ticket with no ID, walk straight through to the gate, get on a plane, pop into the cockpit to say hi to the captain, and within reason do what you wanted. Post September 11 the whole world changed. Now we hold fears and precautions we never envisioned of before. We changed our travel behaviour. I would argue that travel today is safer, and better than it ever was before. But how, where and when we travel fundamentally changed since that fateful day.



Remember 2009? Life was hunky dory when without notice the lights went out across the country. South Africans learnt a new term called “load shedding” and it has been a hot topic for the past 11 years and will be for some time to come. The interesting change in behaviour we saw was that we became aware of a finite supply of electricity. In 2019 – South Africans used less electricity than they did in 2009. We learnt how to cope with less. Generators became a standard, and many new businesses and industries popped up.



In Cape Town 2016, a monumental drought changed a province. I don’t have access to any stats, but would imagine that water consumption in 2019 would be drastically lower than what it was in let’s say 2014. Capetonians are now deeply aware of water and the havoc a shortage can cause.



What does this all mean? Crazy times, change behaviour: forever.



Now here is the interesting part. What behaviour will change? I suspect we can all look at our individual industries and identify a few.



Will travel ever the same again; how comfortable do you feel with 300 strangers breathing the same air as you for 8 hours or more? Speaking of travel – how strict will nations become before they let “outsiders” in again? I suspect we will all have to travel with an “all clear” from a recognised doctor to any destination.



Cinemas and restaurants might have to change the experience to accommodate for more cautious customers.



How many people who normally read newspapers and magazines, have “fallen out of the habit” during this lockdown period, and are unlikely to ever pick one up again?



Many businesses have learnt that staff can work from home in a very effective manner. What does that mean for commuter patterns? If there is no more “drive time” what does it mean for Television and Radio audiences? What does it mean for OOH and other road side furniture?



Day time Television – always a powerful medium (even though under rated) might become even stronger. And streaming services like DSTV Now, and Showmax will continue to grow at an exponential rate and take their place in the sun.



The list could carry on for ages. Take your pick. Commercial property will never be the same, neither will hospitals, or how governments operate and I do believe we will see a spike in conservative nationalism.



Time will tell, but for those making business plans for the future, know that all bets are off.



The consumer will be different. The world will be vastly different. That presents a threat and also a massive opportunity. Stay light on your feet, keep adapting and offering value, and the world post COVID-19 might well be your oyster.



Chris Botha, Group Managing Director, Park Advertising

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COMMENT: COVID_19 – Crazy times call for crazy measures

HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe should implement sustainable political and economic reforms and successfully complete an IMF monitoring programme in order to normalise ties with international lenders, the Paris Club of creditor nations said in a letter seen by Reuters.



Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube in April wrote to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Paris Club and African Development Bank seeking high-level talks to improve relations with the creditors. He warned that without their help, Zimbabwe faced a catastrophe.



But the Paris Club insisted that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government should first implement “substantive and sustainable political and economic reforms, in particular regarding respect for human rights, especially freedoms of assembly and expression”.



Odile Renaud-Basso, a senior French treasury official who signed the June 12 letter, said a poor performance by Zimbabwe during an IMF staff programme that ended early this year was a missed opportunity to impress creditors.



Harare has admitted to policy missteps during the programme. Ncube did not respond to questions on his mobile phone on Tuesday.



“We encourage you to press forward with a credible reform programme to stabilise the economy and strengthen economic governance,” the Paris Club letter said.



The French treasury declined to comment on the letter.



Schwan Badirou Gafari, Paris Club secretary general, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



Zimbabwe will also have to clear more than $2 billion in arrears with the World Bank and African Development Bank to benefit from any debt restructuring from the creditors, their letter said.



Hopes of an economic rebound after the departure of Robert Mugabe in 2017 has turned to despair as inflation soars to nearly 800% amid unemployment above 80%.



Citizens fear the country is returning to the economic horrors of 2008 when Zimbabwe was forced to dump its currency, wrecked by hyperinflation. Workers are agitating for U.S. dollar salaries to protect their earnings and savings.

Emmerson_Mnangagwa_(2019-01-15)

Implement substantive reforms, Paris Club creditors tell Zimbabwe

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; Parts of South African retail chain Edcon are likely to be sold to private equity-backed Retailability Ltd, administrators in charge of its restructuring said.



Best known as owner of the 91-year-old department store chain Edgars and budget clothing retailer Jet, Edcon is one of South Africa’s oldest retail groups but applied for a form of bankruptcy protection in April.



“Retailability plans to utilise Edgars’ unique value proposition, and large attractive target market, to ensure the growth and continuity,” Edcon’s administrators said in the statement, which was issued on Monday.



Edcon entered a process called business rescue in South Africa after it failed to generate enough revenues as a coronavirus lockdown shut its stores across the country.



Its administrators said a transaction with Retailability would save a “significant” number of jobs.



Piers Marsden and Lance Schapiro of Matuson Associates, administrators of the process, said last month that they had identified 15 parties interested in picking up all or parts of debt-laden Edcon.



The statement did not say what Retailability would pay and which parts of Edcon the Durban-based retail chain, which bought Edcon’s young women’s fashion division, Legit, in 2016 for 637 million rand ($37.29 million), would buy.



Matuson Associates and Retailability did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.



Retailability, which runs two other clothing outlets, Beaver Canoe for men’s fashion and Style for families, has 440 stores and some 2,000 employees in South Africa and neighbouring countries.



The administrators said they are in advanced stages to sell other parts of Edcon, adding the deals will close by September.



($1 = 17.0802 rand)

edcon

Parts of South Africa’s Edcon set for sale to Durban-based retailer

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; Africa is expected to partially rebound next year from a pandemic-induced economic slump, but it could still lose nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in economic output in 2020 and 2021, the African Development Bank (AfDB) said on Tuesday.



Africa has so far largely been spared the rampant infections and heavy death tolls seen in Europe and the United States. Its hardest-hit nation, South Africa, has recorded around 200,000 cases of COVID-19 and just over 3,100 deaths.



African economies, however, have not been immune to the pandemic’s global shockwaves, with oil exporters such as Algeria, Angola, Libya and Nigeria on track to witness the continent’s sharpest declines in economic output.



Under a scenario in which the pandemic continues into the second half of this year, the AfDB forecasts a 3.4% contraction in gross domestic product in 2020 &#8211; compared with a pre-pandemic projection by the Abidjan-based bank of growth of 3.9%.



The figures were included in a revision of the AfDB’s African Economic Outlook, which was originally published before the pandemic.



A partial V-shaped recovery should see growth rebound to between 2.4 and 3% next year, the bank said.



“But the projected recovery in 2021 would not make up for an estimated cumulative loss to Africa’s GDP of $173.1–$236.7 billion for 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic,” the report said.



A rebound is threatened by risks including a potentially worsening pandemic, subdued commodity prices, volatile global financial conditions and even natural disasters such as the locust infestations that have ravaged East Africa this year.



International Monetary Fund slashed its 2020 global output forecast last month, projecting the world’s economies will shrink 4.9%, compared to a 3.0% contraction predicted in April.



The European Commission forecast on Tuesday that the euro zone economy will drop deeper into recession this year and rebound less steeply in 2021 than previously thought.

africajpeg

Africa to rebound from pandemic slump in 2021 but damage done: AfDB

BEIJING (Reuters) &#8211; Orders for infrastructure materials and equipment have helped industrial output recover faster in China than most places emerging from COVID-19 lockdowns, but further expansion will be hard to attain without stronger broad-based demand and exports.



Prices of copper SCFcv1 and steel SRBcv1 have surged and share prices for Chinese blue chips struck five-year highs, as state-funded infrastructure projects drove up production of cement, steel and non-ferrous metals.



Railway investment, for example, soared 11.4% in April-June from a year earlier versus a 21% drop in the first quarter.



Industries also gained from pent-up demand for autos and electronics. The property sector, a pillar of growth, also showed signs of rebounding, with real estate investment expanding and sales quickening.



China’s factory-gate prices, still in deflation territory this year, may have turned positive on a monthly basis in June, said Yating Xu, senior economist at IHS Markit, in a sign of recovering demand for manufactured goods.



The optimism also led investment bank ING to forecast no more policy interest rate cuts from the central bank for the rest of the year.



“We started to return to thin profit in May and became a bit better in June,” said an official at a state-owned steel mill in central China, declining to be named due to company policy.



“Our demand mainly come from infrastructure so far this year, especially for steel rebar and medium plates,” he said. Steel rebars are mostly used in construction, and medium steel plates in ships and excavators.



Underpinned by robust infrastructure demand from China, the Baltic dry index, which tracks rates for ships ferrying dry bulk commodities and reflects rates for capesize, surged about 257% in June from a low struck in May due to the freeze in global trade as a result of the lockdowns.



The rosy outlook stands in stark contrast to the dismal industrial landscapes of other economies still fighting COVID-19. Factory output plunged further in May from a year earlier in Japan, South Korea and the United States. Euro zone manufacturing output fell by a record 28% in April.



MINI-BOOM



The industrial recovery is expected to help China’s economy post a positive growth rate in the second quarter after contracting for the first time in decades due to COVID-19.



But analysts warn that factories could struggle to keep up momentum even as early as this quarter as pent-up demand wanes, exports struggle and heavy floods take their toll on industries and businesses in the Yangtze Delta.



The pent-up demand for automobiles has been released by now and the auto market entered a traditional lull in June, said the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) last week. China’s passenger car retail sales fell 8% in June from a year earlier.



In May auto sales rose for the first time after a two-year slump, fanning expectations of a strong V-shaped recovery in a pillar industry, supporting the broader economy. Auto deliveries to dealers also rose for the second straight month in May.



Exports, a sector that provides about 200 million urban jobs, are forecast to come under pressure in the third quarter, analysts say, as sales of COVID-19-related medical supplies slow and global demand stays soft.



Xia Xiaokang, who runs a faucet factory in the eastern city of Wenzhou, shares the same concerns.



After a 10-day production hiatus in May, his factory reopened after receiving the go-ahead from European customers to send suspended shipments and fulfil delayed orders.Slideshow&nbsp;(2 Images)



“June was better than May, but I’m concerned about July, August and September when countries reopen but orders are so few,” said Xia, adding that his company failed to get any new customers at the online Canton Fair &#8211; China’s biggest.

china

Chinese factories to face headwinds in next phase of post-lockdown recovery

DAKAR (Reuters) &#8211; Senegal’s Goree Island, which for centuries served as a way station in the Transatlantic slave trade, has changed the name of its Europe Square in response to the death of George Floyd in the United States and the global movement it inspired.A general view of Goree Island is seen off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, July 8, 2019. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra



It will now be known as Freedom and Human Dignity Square, the municipal council decided.



The palm tree-lined Europe Square, in the shadow of an old French fort at the island’s northern tip, was given its name in 1998 in recognition of European funding for renovations at the World Heritage Site.



But some residents thought the name was nevertheless inappropriate.



“The name Europe Square was, in a way, a symbol of friendship between peoples,” said Doudou Dia, president of the island’s tourism commission.



“But we also said to ourselves&#8230;that in another sense it is celebrating the persecutor,” he said. “What happened to George Floyd was the final straw.”



Lying off the Senegalese capital Dakar, Goree was a transit point over several centuries for enslaved Africans being shipped to the Americas. UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 1978.



These days, it is a popular tourist attraction with its cobblestoned streets and historic houses. It is known primarily for its House of Slaves, which several U.S. presidents, Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II have all visited.



Alassane Niang, a chef from Goree, said the move &#8211; which comes as governments around the world consider changing street names and bringing down public monuments associated with racism &#8211; was long overdue.



“For me, it could even be Africans Square. That would be better because the majority who live here are Black,” he said. “The Senegalese &#8211; Africans &#8211; deserve the square.”

Africans singled out in southern China sparks diplomatic backlash

Senegal slave island, moved by George Floyd’s death, renames Europe Square

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa has a poor track record of implementing debt and spending reductions plans, ratings firm Fitch said on Tuesday, adding that consolidation plans announced in last months supplementary would be difficult to implement due to low growth.



“They have had previous plans to achieve a primary balance which would have required smaller adjustments, and those have been abandoned. So the track record of following up on such plans isn’t really there,” said Fitch’s head of Africa sovereign ratings Jan Friederich during a webinar.

Fitch Ratings

South Africa has bad record on keeping budget promises: Fitch

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South African media and e-commerce group Naspers plans to lay off more than 500 employees and close a number of newspapers and magazines, including leading weekly tabloid the Sunday Sun, its print division Media24 said on Tuesday.



“For many of our print titles the benefits of prior interventions to offset the structural declines and keep them on the shelf no longer exist and they’ve run out of options in this regard,” Media24 CEO Ishmet Davidson said in a statement.



Media24 is Africa’s largest publisher, printer, and distributor of magazines and books, and is also the continent’s largest newspaper publisher with around 3,000 employees across eight divisions.



The company said it would shut down one other national paper, four community newspapers, and four national magazines while outsourcing the majority of its monthlies and halving the frequency.



Its 70 year-old Drum Magazine, one of Africa’s first Black lifestyle publications, will move online.



The layoffs and closures come in the wake of planned job cuts at public broadcaster the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), and similar moves at other members of the country’s “big four” print publishers &#8211; Arena Holdings, Caxton and Independent News.



Since the pandemic hit in mid-March followed by a national lockdown, print publications have taken a hit of between 40% and 100% to advertising and sales revenue, forcing many to migrate online where they earn a fraction of their former ad sales.



The South African National Editors Forum said in June around 50,000 people employed in the printing sector could be affected by newspaper closures. National unemployment is at a record 30.1%.



“The writing’s been on the wall for the global print media industry for years,” said Dinesh Balliah, media studies lecturer at Wits University, adding that more closures locally would follow with newspapers struggling to monetise online content.



“South Africa has managed to buck the trend for a while given its high data costs, which made good quality news sites difficult to access while newspapers remained relatively cost-effective. It really isn’t looking good.”



In Britain, Daily Mirror owner Reach RCH.L on Tuesday announced it would cut about 550 jobs, or 12% of its workforce, after the COVID-19 pandemic hit circulation and advertising at its national and regional newspapers.

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Africa’s top publisher to close South African publications, cut jobs

DUBAI/ LONDON (Reuters) &#8211; Angola has agreed with OPEC to comply fully with a global pact on supply curbs and will compensate for previous overproduction by cutting more from July to September, two OPEC sources said.



The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, a group known as OPEC+, agreed to cut oil output from May by a record 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) after the coronavirus crisis destroyed a third of global demand.



The record cuts are now due to run to the end of July, before tapering to 7.7 million bpd until December.



But some OPEC members, including Angola, have not fully delivered on their agreed production cuts since May.



Two sources told Reuters that Angola had now committed to improve its compliance with its quota and to make up for its May and June overproduction by cutting more in July to September.



“Angola has agreed to comply as per (its agreement) with the JMMC,” one of the sources said, referring to the OPEC+ panel, the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), which advises OPEC+ and holds its next meeting on July 15.



The JMMC, which is chaired by Saudi Arabia and monitors adherence with the oil curbs, has been pressing Angola and other laggards in the pact, such as Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and Gabon, to commit to improved compliance.



Angola’s Ministry of Mineral Resources and Petroleum and state oil company Sonangol did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.



In May, Angola pumped 1.28 million bpd, according to OPEC data, or 100,000 bpd more than its target. It trimmed production to 1.24 million bpd in June, based on a Reuters survey, 60,000 bpd above its target. OPEC/O

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Angola agrees to comply fully with oil cuts after OPEC pressure, sources say

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa’s rand weakened in early trade on Tuesday as worries over surges in coronavirus infections reactivated investor concerns about the economic impact of the pandemic.



At 0700 GMT, the rand was 0.43% weaker at 17.0875 per dollar from an overnight close of 17.00 in New York as sentiment again swung from optimism to nervousness with investors continuing to assess the COVID-19 impact.



Deaths from the coronavirus pandemic in India surpassed 20,000 and case numbers increased, with infections in the United States also jumping, dampening global enthusiasm over the easing of lockdowns.



Locally, COVID-19 deaths accelerated past the 3,000 mark with infections nearing 200,000.



“Despite the recent easing of local lockdown measures, the current levels of activity in markets have yet to suggest any recovery,” analysts at Nedbank said in a note.



“The rand is currently trading in the middle of the short-term technical range, and the objective on the downside remains around the 16.7000 level.”



Bonds were also weaker, with the yield on the benchmark 2030 government issue rising 11 basis points to 9.625%.

ArcelorMittal South Africa fined R3.64 million over hydrogen sulfide emissions

South African rand slides as coronavirus infection rise dims outlook

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; Barrick Gold’s Kibali gold mining joint venture in Democratic Republic of Congo will be able to get $500 million out of the country very soon, CEO Mark Bristow told Reuters on Monday.



The gold miner has been in discussions with Congo’s government over how to get the money out of the country for months. A resolution was close in January, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Bristow said in a telephone interview.



Bristow said he expected the cash to be cleared for exit “very soon”, declining to give a specific timeline, after intensive discussions with the central bank, the mines minister, and the prime minister.



Under Congo’s 2018 mining code, miners must repatriate 60% of revenue from mineral sales back into the Congo, to help develop Congo’s economy.



The $500 million is the excess left over after Kibali repatriated 60% of revenue and paid all its in-country expenses, Bristow said.



Barrick needs the $500 million in order to pay back loans and dividends, Bristow said. AngloGold Ashanti, which owns 45% of Kibali, is entitled to half the money after dividends are paid, he said.



AngloGold Ashanti declined to comment, referring Reuters back to Barrick.



In May, Bristow had said the issue of the $500 million “keeps us awake at night”.



Barrick’s push to get the money out comes as Congo’s economy is under significant strain from the pandemic, with foreign currency reserves shrinking and mining companies taking longer to repatriate the 60% of mineral sales.



“Unfortunately, we have noted that repatriation of the 60% is currently erratic,” mines minister Willy Kitobo Samsoni told Reuters, adding he had warned mining companies to repatriate that capital immediately, or risk sanctions as set out in the mining code.



Delayed repatriation of funds is among the pressures facing the mining sector, a critical contributor to Congo’s economy, Samsoni said on Saturday.

Gold_mines

Kibali’s $500 million will be cleared to leave Congo ‘very soon’ – Barrick CEO

(Reuters) &#8211; Direct cash payments can improve financial security, boost consumer spending and may speed up the recovery, according to a letter from a group of economists calling on U.S. policymakers to keep providing direct cash payments to Americans until the economy is stronger.



The stimulus payments should be issued automatically, based on certain economic indicators such as the unemployment rate, until there is enough evidence that the economy is recovering, the group of mostly left-leaning economists said in an open letter organized by the Economic Security Project and The Justice Collaborative.



“The first round of economic impact payments were a lifeline that helped some get by for a few weeks,” the economists wrote. “Even after businesses start to re-open and jobs begin to come back, there will be significant economic fallout, and demand will continue to lag if people don’t have money to spend.”



The letter was signed by 153 economists, including Jason Furman, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama Administration; Claudia Sahm, a former Fed economist; Darrick Hamilton from the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University; and Indivar Dutta-Gupta, co-executive director at the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. Some of the signatories are advising the campaign of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.



The stimulus payments issued in April under the $2.3 trillion CARES Act helped lift spending for lower income households faster than higher income households, with much of the cash going to essentials, according to an analysis by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights.



The $600 supplement Congress added to weekly unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of the month, leaving jobless Americans at risk of facing a cash cliff while jobs are still scarce.



Congressional lawmakers are on a two-week recess and will face pressure to make decisions when they reconvene in late July.

Administrators propose sales plan for SA retailer Edcon, see potential job cuts

Economists call for more direct cash payments tied to the health of the economy

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; The South African central bank reduced its government bond purchases to 5 billion rand ($292.64 million) in June, half the monthly average, bringing its bond holdings to 35.9 billion rand, data showed on Tuesday.



The Reserve Bank began a series of emergency liquidity measures in late March to ease the stress on banks and capital markets caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Among them were extra repo auctions and 275 basis points worth of lending rate cuts.



The bank has since slowed those support measures as local financial markets recovered, resisting calls from labour and some economists to resort to full-blown quantitative-easing-style funding of government’s gaping budget deficit.



The bank’s June statement of assets and liabilities showed its accommodation to commercial banks via repurchase, or repo agreements, had fallen to 60 billion rand in June from 73.5 billion in the previous month.



In May, the central bank reduced overnight repo auctions to one per day from the two it implemented to pump liquidity to commercial banks.



Bond yields have returned to near pre-COVID-19 levels and the rand has recovered from record lows, although that recovery remains fragile with the economy contracting for the consecutive time in the first quarter.



($1 = 17.0626 rand)

South African Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago Interview

South African central bank reduces bond purchases to 5 bln rand in June

(Reuters) &#8211; South Africa’s consumer confidence plunged to a 35-year low in the second quarter, moving deeper into the negative territory as the COVID-19 pandemic hammered the economy, a survey showed on Tuesday.



The consumer confidence index (CCI), sponsored by First National Bank (FNB) and compiled by the Bureau for Economic Research, slumped to minus 33 points in the quarter after registering minus 9 points in the first quarter.



The sharp deterioration in the CCI is only three index points shy of the all-time lowest consumer confidence level of minus 36 recorded in 1985, a year when the country witnessed violent resistance against apartheid and a partial state of emergency, the survey showed.



South Africa’s economy was already frail before the coronavirus outbreak hit the country in March, with its recession deepening in the first quarter of 2020 dragged by declining mining and manufacturing activities.



“Millions of workers were placed on unpaid leave or reduced pay, or even retrenched, as businesses scrambled to survive the lockdown &#8211; this severely constrained household income, and therefore consumers’ ability to spend,” Mamello Matikinca-Ngwenya, chief economist at FNB, said in a statement.



“Not even the cut-price specials offered by durable goods retailers or the substantial interest rate cuts by the SARB (South African Reserve Bank) seem to be enough to entice consumers to spend their money on durable goods or expensive luxuries.”



South Africa, among the countries that has the highest rate of infections in the African continent, shut down much of its economy at the end of March in one of the world’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns.



However, much of the economic activity was allowed to return to full capacity from June 1.

Newsletter

Steinhoff agrees to sell stake in Conforama France to Mobilux

Namibia to ground national carrier’s license over cash hole

Kenyan sports minister Amina Mohamed to bid for top WTO job

COMMENT: COVID_19 – Crazy times call for crazy measures

Implement substantive reforms, Paris Club creditors tell Zimbabwe

Parts of South Africa’s Edcon set for sale to Durban-based retailer

Africa to rebound from pandemic slump in 2021 but damage done: AfDB

Chinese factories to face headwinds in next phase of post-lockdown recovery

Senegal slave island, moved by George Floyd’s death, renames Europe Square

South Africa has bad record on keeping budget promises: Fitch

Africa’s top publisher to close South African publications, cut jobs

Angola agrees to comply fully with oil cuts after OPEC pressure, sources say

South African rand slides as coronavirus infection rise dims outlook

Kibali’s $500 million will be cleared to leave Congo ‘very soon’ – Barrick CEO

Economists call for more direct cash payments tied to the health of the economy

South African central bank reduces bond purchases to 5 bln rand in June

S.Africa consumer confidence crashes to 35-year low in second quarter – survey

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Newsletter

Steinhoff agrees to sell stake in Conforama France to Mobilux

Namibia to ground national carrier’s license over cash hole

Kenyan sports minister Amina Mohamed to bid for top WTO job

COMMENT: COVID_19 – Crazy times call for crazy measures

Implement substantive reforms, Paris Club creditors tell Zimbabwe

Parts of South Africa’s Edcon set for sale to Durban-based retailer

Africa to rebound from pandemic slump in 2021 but damage done: AfDB

Chinese factories to face headwinds in next phase of post-lockdown recovery

Senegal slave island, moved by George Floyd’s death, renames Europe Square

South Africa has bad record on keeping budget promises: Fitch

Africa’s top publisher to close South African publications, cut jobs

Angola agrees to comply fully with oil cuts after OPEC pressure, sources say

South African rand slides as coronavirus infection rise dims outlook

Kibali’s $500 million will be cleared to leave Congo ‘very soon’ – Barrick CEO

Economists call for more direct cash payments tied to the health of the economy

South African central bank reduces bond purchases to 5 bln rand in June

S.Africa consumer confidence crashes to 35-year low in second quarter – survey

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