March 2020

30 March 2020
The Cable
CSOs ask Buhari to clarify ‘stay at home’ order
A coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to clarify his “stay at home” order. The group, under the aegis of Civil Society Alliance Against COVID19 (CSAA-COVID19), also asked the federal government to take full advantage of the lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja order to boost its efforts in curtailing coronavirus…

27 March 2020
Guardian Nigeria
African experts to xray COVID-19 @ #StartupSouth:#LifeAfterCorona
Experts from across Africa will converge online at the #StartupSouth:#LifeAfterCorona Virtual Conference on Monday March 30, at 4pm (GMT+1) to discuss the Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Africa and advise appropriate response by corporate organisations and Governments…

Premium Times
Despite Buhari’s reforms, cost of shipping goods to Nigeria still very high
The cost of shipping goods into Nigerian ports is among the highest in the world, with the figure for Apapa port costing more than thrice of that to Tema, Ghana, according to new research by SBM Intelligence…

24 March 2020
BusinessDay
Nigeria’s best move against coronavirus is worst scenario for millions of poor
For Tunde Akinloye, a 45-year-old vulcaniser in Apapa, Lagos State, Nigeria’s best defence against the COVID-19 would be the worst scenario for him and his family of eight who depend on his ₦5,000 a day income for survival…

20 March 2020
Reuters
Nigeria tries to shed fuel subsidy costs while keeping price control
Nigeria is trying to shed costly gasoline subsidies and enable private companies to import for the first time in years as its fuel regulator meets to draft a new price control template…

17 March 2020
Bloomberg
How coronavirus will dominate African interest-rate decisions
Central bankers in five key sub-Saharan African countries will meet on interest rates in the next ten days as the focus turns to them for measures to shore up their economies that are expected to be hit by the novel coronavirus…

Pulse Nigeria
Nigeria should ban flights from Coronavirus-hit countries, says policy analyst
Nearly three months after coronavirus (COVID-19) was first detected in Wuhan, China, the virus has spread into over 100 countries around the world…

16 March 2020
BusinessDay
Huge haulage cost, terminal charges weighing on Nigerian importers
Importers in Nigeria, including manufacturers who bring in critical production inputs through the seaports, are breaking under the weight of heavy shipping charges, terminal handling charges as well as huge cost of transporting their goods from the port terminal to their warehouses…

NewsWireNGR
How deadly coronavirus is crippling Nigeria’s travel industry
At the end of December 2019, the existence of a new virus was reported to the World Health Organization. This virus, now known as the Corona Virus or COVID-19; spread quickly in the city of Wuhan and throughout China and by March 13, 2020, there were nearly 148,000 cases globally; with cases on every continent…

13 March 2020
The Africa Report
Nigeria needs managed depreciation to limit coronavirus, oil double whammy
The central bank said on March 12 that “market fundamentals do not support naira devaluation” at this time. Nigeria’s foreign exchange reserves remains “robust and comfortable”, the bank said…

NewsWireNGR
Nigerian Stock Exchange sheds ₦1.4 Trillion in 3 days on the back of falling oil prices and Coronavirus
The Central Bank of Nigeria held a consultative round table on Wednesday morning tagged “Going for growth 2.0”. The roundtable comes a few days after “Black Monday”, a global fall in the price of equities after Russia and Saudi Arabia started an oil price war. In the US, the main financial indexes were down by more than 7%. In New York, initial losses caused trading to be suspended…

12 March 2020
Bloomberg
Cargo traffic surges at Nigeria ports after Benin border closure
The operator of Nigeria’s largest container terminal is expanding operations to deal with a sharp rise in cargo traffic since the government closed the border with Benin…

Daily Independent
50 Nigerian crude oil cargoes stranded in int’l waters — NNPC
Mallam Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), on Wednesday, lamented that following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Nigeria has about 50 cargoes of crude oil in the international waters that had not found landing…

The Nation
Coronavirus: Global economy on trial, impact and the Nigerian factor
The effect of coronavirus pandemic on global economy has continued to generate rapid trepidation among governments, corporate organizations and businesses across the world, including Nigeria. Nigeria, being an imported dependent economy, relies on China for most of its manufacturing goods. More than half of its imports such as clothes, healthcare products, construction materials and, even, household products come in from China. Sadly, a larger percentage of major projects in Nigeria also rely on foreign loans and constriction workers. This calls for urgent action…

11 March 2020
The Africa Report
Buhari’s multiple headaches
President Buhari faces the third recession of his career as oil prices plunge and the rising debt profile worries Nigerians. A crash in global oil prices would push Nigeria towards a second recession in four years since the former head of state Muhammadu Buhari resumed office as the country’s president in 2015, analysts say…

10 March 2020
Bloomberg
The changing winners and losers from oil’s historic plunge
Oil price shocks always divide the world’s economies into winners and losers, sometimes producing lasting geopolitical change — and this time is unlikely to be different. But to misquote Tolstoy, every oil crisis distributes happiness and unhappiness in its own way…

BusinessDay
Buhari sets up committee over crude price, virus
Faced with the reality of several years of lip service to economic diversification, President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday summoned his top economic managers and inaugurated a committee to assess risks to the economy in a seemingly knee-jerk reaction to a looming crisis as oil price slides…

Coronavirus: Buhari’s First Quarter plans face threats
As the global outbreak of CoronaVirus and poor economic outlook continues with its negative impacts, there are indications that several infrastructure projects listed for take off in the first quarter may be affected by the disruptive effects on global economy…

9 March 2020
Nairametrics
It costs more to ship through Apapa port than Ghana’s Tema port, others –SBM
It is more expensive to ship goods from the European Union to Nigeria, compared to other African countries like Ghana and South Africa. This is according to a report by SBM Intelligence, which was published last week…

8 March 2020
Premium Times
Nigerian businesses lament impact of coronavirus in China
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in Central China, in December last year, some factories in China have remained closed, while workers have been forced to stay out of work as part of attempts by authorities to curtail the spread of the virus…

6 March 2020
Arise News
Shipping costs in Nigeria are FIVE times higher than Ghana and South Africa – SBM Intelligence
The Head of Research at SBM Intelligence, Ikemesit Effiong, shares a report which reviews shipping costs at ports in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa. Why is it so costly in Nigeria? He breaks down the reasons in this illuminating segment of the Global Business Report…

Quartz
Import costs into Lagos surpass Ghana, South Africa
Corruption and congestion at Nigeria’s biggest port are costing importers thousands of dollars. Nigeria’s economy is highly dependent on imports, despite the ambitious rhetoric and best efforts of successive governments…

5 March 2020
BusinessDay
Moving containers from Nigerian ports ten times costlier than in Ghana, South Africa
It is ten times costlier to transport cargoes from the Lagos ports than it is to move them from seaports in either Ghana and South Africa according to research by SBM Intelligence.

Vanguard
Port transport 10 times costlier in Nigeria than Ghana, SA
Local transportation of goods from Apapa and Tincan Island ports in Lagos costs up to 10 times higher than the ports in Ghana and South Africa, according to research carried out by SBM Intelligence…

4 March 2020
The Cable
Moving goods from Apapa port 10 times costlier than Ghanaian, South African ports
A research carried out by SBM Intelligence has shown that it is 10 times costlier to move goods from the port in Apapa, Lagos than it is to move them from the ports in Ghana and South Africa…

Reuters
Shipping goods into Nigeria costs more than for African peers
It costs as much as five times more to ship goods into Nigeria than it does to deliver items via other African ports, consultancy SBM Intelligence said in a note on Wednesday…