Star 2024-07-29

Stronger demand for rubies and emeralds helped Gemfields accumulate $121 million (R2.2 billion) in revenue for the first-half period to the end of June against the backdrop of depressed diamond prices. Gemfields is a market leader in coloured gemstones specialising in emeralds mined from Zambia and rubies from Mozambique. De Beers, which is being demerged from Anglo American, has had to “intentionally lower production” in response to “weaker rough diamond demand” across global markets. Another diamond producer, Petra Diamonds is expecting diamond prices to improve. Gemfields has, however, been benefiting from the stronger emerald and ruby prices for the half-year period to June 2024. “Total auction revenues comprised $121 million (R2.2bn) with continued demand for rough emeralds and rubies,” said the company on Friday. Revenue was generated from Gemfields 75%-owned…

South Africa has again requested the establishment of two panels at a meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to examine what, in its view, were unscientific and discriminatory measures placed on citrus imported from the country by the EU. This followed over 20 years of engagements with the EU to find an amicable solution. In a joint statement issued by the the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) and the Citrus Growers’ Association of Southern Africa (CGA), the government on Friday said the initial requests for the establishment of the panels were made towards the end of last month. “These requests were not accepted by the EU. In line with the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding, today (July…

Nedbank is bracing for protracted legal battle with Transnet SOC and the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) over their intention to sue the banking group in a bid to recover R2.7 billion in interest rate swops dating back to the State Capture era in 2015/16. This comes as the bank on Friday stated that the return on equity of 15.5% earned from the swops was market related and amounted to less than R43 million. The SIU and Transnet announced on Friday that they were suing Nedbank for recovery of R2.7bn they claimed were proceeds of transactions from Transnet’s multibillion-rand locomotives procurement project where the bank was allegedly involved in restructuring the interest on the debt used to fund its freight rail and port operations, while the bank would receive fees for…

The Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic), Parks Tau, on Friday concluded his visit to the US where he led a high-level delegation to participate in the 21st African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) Forum. With Agoa expiring in 14 months, the African Ministers of Trade urged the Biden Administration and the Members of US Congress, for expeditious renewal of Agoa with non-controversial enhancements and amendments for a minimum of 16 years to provide the required predictability and certainty to buyers, exporters, and investors. They called for the renewal of Agoa to be concluded by the end of this year. Tau said that there was an agreement to promote stronger and closer investment relations to complement Agoa and change the structure of Africa’s trade towards value-added exports. “We welcome…

There is still a lot of confusion around the taxes on imports from Chinese e-retailers like Shein and Temu. A long-established common law principle is ‘de minimis non curat lex’ commonly known as ‘de minimis’. It translates to ‘the law does not concern itself with trifles’, meaning the law should not get involved in circumstances where what has occurred is extremely trivial. When importing, the de minimis rule applies when you import a product below a certain value (the de minimis value), and consequently don’t need to pay any import tax on the product. De minimis values vary by country.South Africa’s de minimis value is set at zero, meaning you’ll have to pay import duties and VAT on all products imported no matter the value of the product. As with…

There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.” – Mary Kay Ash used this quote IN THE article below, Nedbank has vowed to defend itself vigorously – the only problem being it was on the scene of the crime. Things are starting to happen: The Banking Ombudsman put R25 735 594.17 back into consumers’ pockets after resolving 8 008 complaints against banks last year about current accounts, personal loans, savings accounts, credit cards and home loans. National director of Public Prosecutions Shamila Bathohi said: “The rule of law in South Africa is on life support at the moment, and it has to be addressed now.” This was said during…