Economy

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Yields on benchmark German government bonds are within touching distance of zero percent for the first time in almost three years as Europe’s economic performance stalls and concerns over global trade spur investors toward havens. A no-deal Brexit, upheaval in Italian politics or a deteriorating labor market are among the risks that could turn bund yields negative, according to strategists. Sub-zero yields on 10-year bonds would mark a step…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – For all the palpitations that the trade war between the U.S. and China will knock out their economies, it is Europe that increasingly looks like the biggest threat to global growth. Industrial production across the 19-nation euro area is falling at the fastest pace since the financial crisis, and deteriorating demand is evident as the region finds itself squeezed between international and domestic drags. That leaves expansion at risk of…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – As Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari seeks re-election this week, economic growth is finally getting back to where it was when he took power four years ago. Gross domestic product in Africa’s largest oil producer expanded 1.9 percent last year, the most since 2015, the Abuja-based National Bureau of Statistics said on its website on Tuesday. The economy grew 2.4 percent in the three months through December from a year earlier, the…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) South African inflation expectations have begun to subside and have moved toward the 4.5 percent point the central bank prefers to target, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Daniel Mminele said. But policy makers remain concerned about the risk of higher administered prices, including from electricity and water tariffs, he said in a speech in Johannesburg. “The SARB’s quarterly projection model shows a continued convergence of inflation expectations, which are already off their near-6…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Promises by Nigerian presidential candidates to fix an economy that vies with South Africa’s to be the continent’s largest could be unfulfilled unless the country is weaned off its oil dependence. President Muhammadu Buhari, 76, a former military ruler running for a second four-year term in this week’s vote, has struggled to jump-start the economy and far from lifting growth to the annual 10 percent he promised before the previous…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) South Africa’s unemployment rate remained near a 15-year high in the final quarter of 2018, even as the finance industry added more than 100,000 jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 27.1 percent from 27.5 percent in the three months through September, Statistics South Africa said in report released Tuesday in the capital Pretoria. The median estimate of six economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 27.5 percent. South African factory-output growth slowed…

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ivory Coast’s growth rate is expected to average as much as 8 percent over the next five years, President Alassane Ouattara said in an interview with Radio Francaise Internationale. The economy is expected to expand 8 percent this year, one of the fastest growth rates in the world, with inflation projected at 1 percent, the budget deficit at 3-4 percent of gross domestic product and public debt less than 40 percent…