20%
South Africa is close to spinning a state-owned bank out of its postal service that will lend to the country’s poor and distribute welfare grants, in a bid to loosen the grip of four private sector banks.
“It’s not going to be a normal bank like the big four. It’s going to be a developmental bank to deal with the market that is not being served at the moment,” says South African telecommunications minister Siyabonga Cwele.
$2trn
China’s home-grown C919 passenger jet took to the skies on its long-delayed maiden flight on Friday, a major step for Beijing as it looks to raise its profile in the global aviation market and boost high-tech manufacturing at home.
The white, green and blue aircraft, with “C919” emblazoned on its tail, sped along the tarmac at Shanghai’s international airport and lifted off under overcast skies in front of thousands of dignitaries, aviation workers and enthusiasts.
The narrow-body jet, which will compete with Boeing’s 737 and the Airbus A320, soon disappeared into the clouds carrying its skeleton crew of five pilots and engineers. State broadcaster CCTV sent out live footage from the plane, which had no passenger seats installed for the maiden flight.
The jet is a symbol of China’s ambitions to muscle into a global jet market estimated to be worth $2 trillion over the next two decade.
$5.9bn
HSBC offers any one watching a paradox. Its target range for high-quality capital is 12-13 per cent of risk-weighted assets. But the bank aims to be “consistently above” that: the ratio grew from 13.6 per cent a year ago to 14.3 per cent in the first quarter. Investors inured to HSBC’s greater uncertainties will just have to tolerate this deliberate vagueness. Their Pavlovian response to a strong capital ratio is to demand extra payouts that would shrink the numerator. HSBC may prefer to inflate the denominator by lending more in its home market of Hong Kong. Better trading here helped the bank raise adjusted profits before tax to $5.9bn, well ahead of forecasts.
25 years
For those not listening, Nigeria’s finance minister says the government’s plans to spend billions of dollars upgrading dilapidated infrastructure will help drag Africa’s top oil producer out of recession this year. Low oil prices plunged the west African nation into its worst economic crisis in 25 years with output contracting by 1.5 per cent last year. The situation has been exacerbated by the government’s preference for talking and not acting.
$50
Brent Oil’s retreat to less than $50 a barrel, a level not seen since OPEC forged its landmark agreement to cut output last November stoked declines from iron ore to industrial metals and losses that many commentators had been putting down to individual supply and demand factors. The deterioration in sentiment carried through to the currency market, where the key risk barometer in Asia — the yen — spiked higher against the dollar. And Stock losses from Australia to Hong Kong gathered pace. Bright spots remained, though, with some emerging equities still up.
