BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Nigeria to export rice; online purchase tax coming. See other stories that made our pick

Hello. Another Sunday is upon us for our Business Roundup this week. In case you missed out on details, here are the top highlights of events that happened during the week.

Headlines:

• Kenya, South Africa, lead Nigeria on Global Fintech country rankings
• Saudi Aramco raises $25.6 billion in world’s largest IPO
• Online purchase tax may commence next month —FIRS
• Nigeria to start exporting rice in two years —Minister

Summary:

Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, has been ranked 52, behind 2 other African countries –South Africa and Kenya in the recent Global Fintech Index. The ranking, as contained in the Global Fintech Index City Rankings 2020 Report by Findexable, sampled 230 cities across 65 countries.

Find out considered measures of the ranking and how Nigeria is only 13 place to the least ranked, Lebanon. Read now.

Saudi Arabian national petroleum and natural gas company, Saudi Aramco, has successfully completed its Initial Public Offering (IPO), where it raised a record $25.6 billion (£19.4bn) from investors.

The share sale dwarfed that of China-based online retailer Alibaba which, in September 2014, raised $25 billion, the biggest in history as of that time. To know what the company did differently, read here.

Payment of online tax on products bought on the internet through eCommerce platforms and delivered to customers may start in January 2020, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has said.

FIRS chair, Babatunde Fowler, made the disclosure while addressing journalists on Thursday, on the sidelines of the Nigerian Tax Research Network third annual meeting held in Abuja. See details.

The Federal Government, on Thursday said the country will start exporting rice to other countries in the next two years given the impressive rise in the production and processing of rice in the country.

Read also: BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Chevron’s divestment; downsides of border closure. See other stories that made our pick

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono stated this in Kura, Kano State, while on an assessment tour on the impact of the land border closure on the entire rice production value chain. Read more.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Financial services most active in a week trade volume dipped

The Nigerian bourse posted lacklustre performances across its key market indices this week.

The All Share Index (ASI) slumped by 0.54% to 26,855.52 basis points from the 27,002.15 recorded last week. Market Capitalisation equally responded to the negative trend, dipping by the same margin from the N13.033 posted last week to close at N12.962 trillion.

This week, Trade Volume of 952.697 million shares worth N12.774 billion was reported in 17,279 deals compared to the 1.161 billion shares valued at N13.174 billion posted in 18,142 deals last week. Read full report.

Meanwhile, on our editorial Business Review segment;

We reviewed the move of the American digital service giant Google as it is set to battle Facebook, Twitter, Instagram for share of Nigeria’s digital ads market. As wars like this tend to favour customers, Facebook and others might suffer a significant drop in revenue from ads. Find post here.

During the week, we equally looked at the future and how promising it is for Globus Bank, the newly licensed commercial bank by the CBN. Although, with an impressive tech-drive, critics have warned that the future must be well calculated for it not to be another Diamond Bank.

In a market space as Nigeria, and as new players, the review highlighted points for considerations if Globus, competitively, has come to stay. Link to review.

Goodbye and see you next week for another serving of Business Roundup. For the latest news and updates from around the globe, keep reading Ripples Nigeria.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now