Star 2023-08-14

ABSA Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB), to further its digital development, has become the first African bank to join Contour’s digital trade finance network. “Absa CIB is positioning itself at the fore- front of digital developments by being a part of Contour’s digital trade finance network. Many of Africa’s trade transactions are manual and paper-based, which slows down trade growth and creates another layer of complexity and costs,” Contour said in a statement on Friday. Absa CIB’s clients will have access to Contour’s digital Letter of Credit, which reduces the process of presenting documents from an average of five to 10 days to under 24 hours. Digital developments are a big part of addressing challenges and creating access to new markets. In Africa, digitisation is critical to the success of…

COAL MINER Exxaro expects its half-year profit to fall by as much as 37%, mainly due to weaker prices of the fossil fuel and the impact of rail logistics problems, the company said on Friday. Exxaro said it expected headline earnings per share – South Africa’s most common profit measure – of between R21.58 and R26.38 for the six months ended June 30, down from R34.26 during the same period last year. Thermal coal prices have retreated from 2022 peaks, when surging demand from Europe fired up coal miners’ earnings after a ban was imposed on Russian coal over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Prices have come off because European utilities have significant coal and gas stocks after a milder than expected winter, and have been ramping up renewable energy projects.…

Minister of Electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has left it to the system operator to decide whether the City of Johannesburg will be exempted from load shedding during the crucial BRICS Summit next week. Heads of State of BRICS nations, government ministers and private business executives will descend on Johannesburg from Tuesday to attend the first in-person, three-day summit since the outbreak of Covid-19. The summit comes as power utility Eskom is implementing daily power cuts of two hours at a time to protect the national grid from collapsing due to “long-standing insufficient energy generation capacity” amid rising demand. The government usually requests the Eskom system operator to exempt the country from load shedding on special occasions, and it was expected this would be the case to avoid a possible embarrassment…

International Energy Agency forecasts global oil demand may reach an all-time high FUEL PRICES in South Africa could increase dramatically over the next month, possibly pushing consumer inflation back above the upper limit of the target range, as the global demand for oil is expected to reach an all-time high. This comes as the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Friday revised upwards its forecast for global oil demand growth in 2023, which could also potentially push prices even higher. In its August report, the IEA said demand was “scaling record highs” on the back of a sharp reduction by oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia. The IEA said the world oil demand hit a record 103 million barrels per day in June, and August could see yet…

SOUTH Africa will aim to put its best foot forward in a bid to convince the BRICS member states that the country is open for business, thus hoping to attract investment into the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. This comes as the country hosts the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg next week where government leaders, State-owned companies and private sector businesses from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) will discuss partnerships for mutually accelerated growth. In preparation, the BRICS Business Council has held a number of stakeholder engagements with working groups from the South African Chapter. Co-chairperson of the Infrastructure Working Group Zodwa Mbele on Friday said they wanted to share knowledge with BRICS member countries and industry experts to see how South Africa can benefit. The BRICS Infrastructure…

A US JUDGE on Friday dismissed as frivolous a conservative activist investor’s lawsuit against Starbucks’ board for the coffee chain’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) sued in August 2022 over Starbucks’ setting hiring goals for black and other people of colour, awarding contracts to “diverse” suppliers and advertisers, and tying executive pay to diversity. The non-profit, which holds around $6 000 (R113 641) in Starbucks stock, said those policies required the company to make race-based decisions that violated federal and state civil rights laws. Chief US District Judge Stanley Bastian in Spokane, Washington, rejected the allegations at a hearing in the case on Friday, saying the lawsuit centred on public policy questions that were for lawmakers and corporations, not courts,…