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$51bn
Tencent Holdings Ltd’s shares fell more than 4 percent on Friday, wiping out around $23bn of market value, after the Chinese internet firm’s largest shareholder, Naspers of South Africa, lowered its stake for the first time in 17 years. Tencent has now lost more than $51 billion in market value in two days, having fallen 5 percent on Thursday – its steepest in over six weeks. With a current market capitalisation of $508 billion, Tencent is still Asia’s most valuable listed firm.
7.2%
Rwanda’s economy will expand by 7.2 percent this year, boosted by the services sector and a rebound in construction, the finance minister said on Friday. The International Monetary Fund, which held a joint press conference with the minister, Claver Gatete, said it expects growth of 7-8 percent. The East African economy, which relies on farming, grew 6.1 percent last year.
$15.1bn
Uganda’s national debt has nearly trebled in the last three years to more than 50 percent of GDP, posing a huge risk since nearly two thirds of that borrowing was external, the central bank said. Three years ago, Uganda’s debt was around $6bn. In a report titled “State of the Economy”, the Bank of Uganda (BoU) said the rising costs of servicing the landlocked East African nation’s $15.1 billion debt pile could hit economic growth because of reduced public investment. Over the last decade the government of long-ruling President Yoweri Museveni has ramped up borrowing, mostly from China.
1.8%
Grain and soyabean prices declined on Beijing’s threats to impose tariffs on a list of US imports including agricultural products such as pork, nuts, fresh fruits and wine in retaliation to the Trump administration’s steel and aluminium duties. Soyabeans, a key US farm export to China, were not included, although traders are worried that Beijing may still add the oilseed to the list. Corn was down 1.3 per cent to $3.7125 a bushel while soyabeans declined 1 per cent to $10.1975. Wheat retreated 1.8 per cent to $4.4775 a bushel.
40%
Since Cyril Ramaphosa became president of South Africa, assets have rallied, business confidence is soaring and economic growth is accelerating with inflation slowing. However, it seems it will take more than “Ramaphoria”, as it’s been called in SA, to spur the country’s corporate debt issuers into action. Bond sales by South African companies are off to the slowest start to a year since 2014 following record issuance last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Last year, issuance reached a record R142bn, a jump of about 40% from the previous year, according to Zoya Sisulu, the Johannesburg-based head of debt capital markets at Standard Bank Group.
