Igihe

Category: Business

  • Google Shares Drop 9%

    Google suffered an embarrassing gaff when its third quarter financial results were accidentally released early, which ultimately led to its stock price falling by more than $60 a share Oct. 18 while the markets remained open.

    Times got a bit rocky for Google Oct. 18 as the search company announced that its third-quarter profit totaled $2.18 billion, down from $2.73 billion a year ago.

    However, that wasn’t the worst of it – Google also suffered an embarrassing early release of its third-quarter Form 8-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Web site, which meant the financial data was accidentally available four hours before the stock market was set to close.

    That accidental report release triggered an early selloff in Google shares, with share prices dropping by about 9 percent before the sale of shares were eventually halted, according to a report by Barron’s.

    Google’s third-quarter revenue for the period ending Sept. 30, 2012, totaled $11.33 billion, which is lower than the expectations of a survey of financial analysts, who expected revenue of $11.87 billion.

    In his opening remarks during the earnings call with analysts, Google CEO Larry Page said the early report at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time was accidentally caused by the company’s financial printer.

    “I’m sorry for the scramble early today,” said Page. “Our printers have said that they sent out the release just a bit early.”

    Google’s revenue for the third-quarter is listed by the company at $14.1 billion, which is before the deduction of traffic acquisition costs totaling $2.77 billion. Q3 revenue for the same period one year ago totaled $9.72 billion.

    This was Google’s second quarterly earnings report since acquiring its Motorola Mobility unit in May for $12.5 billion. In its second quarter earnings report this past July, Google posted revenue of $12.2 billion, which was a 35 percent year-over-year increase from 2011.

    “We had a strong quarter,” said Page. “Revenue was up 45 percent year-on-year, and we cleared our first $14 billion revenue quarter. Not bad for a teenager,” alluding to the 14 years since Google was incorporated.

  • Burundi Revenue Collection up by 9.1%

    Burundi has recorded a huge leap in revenue collection rising by 9.1% annually at US$257.5 million tax collection in the nine months to September.

    The anti Corruption efforts are paying off in a largely corrupt East African country.

    Burundi Revenue Authority says, “The tax base grew with a registration of 5,000 new contributors who were in the informal sector and who didn’t pay tax before.”

    Monthly tax revenues collected in September this year fell to 41 billion francs from 44.5 billion francs in September 2011.

    The board said this was due to the government’s decision to suspend tax on basic food imports to the landlocked central African country, to ease the impact of soaring prices of essential commodities.

    The decision came into effect in May and will last until the end of December.

    In order to plug a US$64 million revenue deficit on the current 2012 budget, the government has raised taxes on beer, liquors, mineral water and other beverages.

  • Trade Volumes Record Slight Drop

    The Rwanda Stock Exchange market October 16, slightly went down in traded volumes and turnover compared to yesterday’s trading session.

    The total turnover for the day was Rwf 21,702,600 from 115,900 BK shares and 15,100 BRALIRWA shares traded in fifteen deals compared to yesterday’s trading session which recorded a turnover of Rwf 24,504,000 from 136,400 BK shares and 15,400 Bralirwa shares traded in seven deals.

    BK shares traded at Rwf 130 and Rwf 131 and closed at Rwf 131, registering an increase of Rwf 1 compared to yesterday’s closing price while BRALIRWA shares traded between Rwf 435 and Rwf 440 and closed at Rwf 440; unchanged from yesterday’s closing price.

    KCB and NMG shares prices last transacted at Rwf 154 and Rwf 1,200 respectively.

    At the end of formal trading hours, there were outstanding bids of 1,000,000 BK shares at Rwf 130 and outstanding offers of 24,900 shares at Rwf 131 and Rwf 132.

    On Bralirwa counter, there were outstanding bids of 41,700 shares between Rwf 425 and Rwf 435 and no outstanding offers.

  • Rwanda, Uganda Traders Demand Frw1.6Billion From Kenya

    Rwanda and Uganda business communities are demanding compensation from the Kenyan Government of damage caused following the 2008 Post Election related violence.

    The two landlocked countries are demanding about Frw1.6 Billion as compensation for the destruction of their trucks and goods along the Northern Corridor (Nairobi-Eldoret-Kampala highway).

    They argue that it is four years since Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki promised to compensate them in a meeting held in January at Harambee House.

    The matter is threatening to disrupt harmonious relations between Kenya and the two greatest trade partners of Uganda and Rwanda, according to Kenyan Standard.

    Kampala City Traders Association (Kacita) and Rwanda’s Federation of East African Freight Forwarders Associations (FEAFFA) have raised concern over the issue. Ugandan business community is planning to hold a peaceful demonstration in Kampala if the matter is not resolved by end of this month.

    “We express concern and fear that our people lost properties during the 2008 election violence in Kenya. It is part of this concern that Ugandan traders are now planning to divert their goods through the Dar es Salaam port for fear of election violence next year,” Kacita spokesman Issa Sekitto, said.

    “We want assurance from the Kenyan Government in the form of a compensatory note that the traders will be compensated by end of this month failure to which we shall mobilise our members to demonstrate at the Kenyan High Commission offices in Kampala.”

    In a letter written to President Kibaki and seen by the Standard, Rwanda’s Federation of East African Freight Forwarders Associations (FEAFFA) want the President to intervene and have them compensated before next year’s elections.

    “Your Excellency’s kind attention is drawn to January 29th 2012 at Harambee House where you issued a directive to the Deputy Prime Minister and former minister of Finance Uhuru Kenyatta and Minister of East Africa Community affairs Musa Sirma to settle the claims of the traders affected by the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya,” Bosco Rusagara, the then president of FEAFFA writes.

    “You are issued a two-week deadline to put closure to the long standing saga. The minutes of that meeting were considered and a resolution to the effect passed.”

    But East African Community Minister Musa Sirma said the matter is being looked into and assured the private sectors of both Uganda and Rwanda of an amicable resolution to the matter.

    “The Government under the then Trade Minister Chirau Mwakwere formed a committee which was later handed over to the Permanent Secretaries. The PS’ in turn are expected to prepare a cabinet memo for discussion and action. The matter is expected to be brought before the cabinet for a solution,” Sirma explained.

  • EAC Diaspora in Texas Urged to invest in Rwanda

    The East African Diaspora community from North America has highlighted Rwanda as a main destination for investment with opportunities in hospitality and tourism, agribusiness amongst many others.

    The idea was noted during a 3 day annual Conference in Richardson, Texas; a city known as the “Telecom Corridor of the United States”.

    During the event, Ambassador of Rwanda to the United States, James Kimonyo discussed topics on the unique nature of the investment climate in Rwanda.

    According to the statement received by IGIHE, In the midst of large East African and U.S. companies, they were able to showcase the limitless business opportunities that Rwanda has to offer and encouraged the audience to think of Rwanda as their next business venture.

    The vice-chair of the East Africa Chamber of commerce Mr. Frank Kanobana; a Rwandan National said, “he strives to encourage Rwandan Diaspora around Texas to be involved in the initiative as it will be of benefit both to themselves and to Rwanda in turn”.

    Similarly, the embassy officials were also able to meet with the Mayor of Dallas as well as various executives of companies in a private setting, paving the platform to have a one-to-one conversation regarding Rwanda and its array of opportunities.

  • Roth & Shapley Win Nobel Economics Award

    Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley have won the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics.

    The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the US academics for their work on the “theory of stable allocations and practice of market design”.

    The work is concerned with the best possible way to allocate resources, such as in school admissions.

    Mr Roth is a professor at Harvard and Mr Shapley teaches at the University of California in Los Angeles.

    The committee said their work was a form of economic engineering, designing markets for situations where traditional market mechanisms based on price are not applicable or do not work well.

    “Even though these two researchers worked independently of one another, the combination of Shapley’s basic theory and Roth’s empirical investigations, experiments and practical design has generated a flourishing field of research and improved the performance of many markets,” the Academy said.

    Appearing at a news conference by phone from the US, Mr Roth said: “It sheds a very bright spotlight on the work we do, so that’s a good thing.

    “My colleagues and I work in an area that we’re calling market design, which is sort of a newish area of economics and I’m sure that when I go to class this morning my students will pay more attention.”

    In 1962, Mr Shapley and his colleague David Gale laid down a theory for how best to match demand and supply in markets with ethical and legal complications, such as admitting students to public schools in the US.

    If these particular markets were just left according to price, then you would get what economists refer to as market failure.

    This original work developed into the Gale-Shapley algorithm, which aims to ensure “stable matching” or the best possible outcome for both sides. “An allocation where no individuals perceive any gains from further trade is called stable,” the Academy explained.

    This is a key pillar in co-operative game theory, an area of mathematical economics that seeks to determine how rational individuals choose to co-operate.

    In the early 1980s, Alvin Roth set out to study the market for newly qualified doctors.

    This was a problem as a scarcity of medical students – such as that which existed in the US in the 1940s – forced hospitals to offer internships earlier and earlier, sometimes several years before graduation, meaning that a match was made before they could produce evidence of their skills and qualifications.

    A clearing system was set up to try to better match medical students and hospitals. In a paper from 1984, Mr Roth studied the algorithm used by this clearing house and discovered that it was very close to the Gale-Shapley algorithm, showing that it applied in real-life situations.

    The awards continue a strong US run of victories in the category of economic sciences.

    Forty-three prizes in economics have been awarded since 1969.

    BBC

  • Korea, Africa Hold Cooperation Conference

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    South Korea and the African Union are jointly holding the Korea Africa Economic Cooperation Conference in Seoul from Oct. 15-18, bringing 150 ministers and heads of 18 African nations and international organizations.

    The South Korean foreign ministry says, “Africa is the last growth engine of the world economy, which has unlimited growth potential,” Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said in a letter of invitation. “This forum is expected to provide a good opportunity (for South Korea) to strengthen ties with Africa.”

    The conference remains the biggest event co-organized between Africa and Korea.

    The theme of this year’s conference focuses on “inclusive and green growth,” and the program will include the ministerial roundtable, bilateral meetings of ministers, economic cooperation seminars, African countries’ investor relation activities, and one-on-one business meetings.

    AfDB Senior Management and Executive Directors from Regional Member Countries will attend all the conference activities.

    The conference outcomes are expected to increase inclusive economic growth of African countries through the application of Korea’s development approaches.

    It will also knowledge on inclusive growth in sectors such as human resource development, infrastructure, energy, information technology, agriculture and green growth; and to enhance political and economic cooperation between Africa and Korea through increased trade, investment and dialogue.

    The partnership between the African Development Bank Group and the Republic of Korea began in 1980, when Korea joined the African Development Fund (ADF) in 1980 and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 1982.

    In 2009, Korea provided a temporary AfDB capital increase of US $306.1 million and supported in 2010 the historic General Capital Increase (GCI) VI of 200 per cent and ADF-XII replenishment amounts of UA 53.86 million (KRW 94.77 billion) representing an increase of 66 per cent from its ADF-XI contribution.

    At the recently concluded ADF-12 Mid Term Review in Cape Verde, Korea played an active role in the discussions and highlighted the Bank’s focus on energy and natural resources, including the role of PPPs in infrastructure development.

  • East Africa: Countries Receive Funding for Electricity Interconnection

    The governments of Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have received funding totaling to $400million [Sh1trillion] from international agencies to implement a regional electricity interconnection project to aid member states share electricity efficiently, reliably and affordably.

    The project consists of the construction and upgrading of power transmission lines to interconnect the member countries.

    Speaking at a stakeholders meeting in Kampala on Oct. 11, Eva Paul from the KfW-German Financial Cooperation said they chose to fund the project in order to assist countries access cheap and affordable power, improve the living standards of the people in the region and foster cooperation and mutual understanding among the countries in the region.

    Other funders of the project include the African Development Bank, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

    Participants at the workshop however observed that challenges like completing the power purchase agreements, differences in languages, completing the tendering process were still hindering the progress of the project.

    “I have advised the countries to first work on these [challenges] so that by 2015 we are sharing power,” Simon D’ Ujanga, the minister of state for energy told journalists on the sidelines of the workshop.

    D’ Ujanga who opened the workshop said Uganda had completed the tendering process and was ready to start construction of the power line from Kawanda–Masaka-Mirama hills and then connect to Rwanda in 2013.

    “It is good to interconnect so that if one member records power cuts it is able to receive power from another,” the minister said.

    Members states have set 2015 as deadline for the full implementation of the project.

    The Independent

  • Rwangombwa Named Finance Minister of the Year-2012

    Emerging Markets has announced that John Rwangombwa, Rwandan Finance Minister, has won the 2012 Emerging Markets Finance Minister of the Year Award for Sub-Saharan Africa.

    “Rwanda has achieved strong economic growth combined with a significant reduction in poverty rates, despite an increasingly challenging external environment,” said Taimur Ahmad, editor in chief of Emerging Markets.

    “Between 2006 and 2011 poverty in Rwanda dropped by twelve (12%) percentage points from 57% to 45% and extreme poverty dropped from 35.8% to 24.1% in 2011. This reduction coupled with the high average growth rate of 8.2% over the same period demonstrate that growth in Rwanda has been pro-poor and development assistance has been effectively used to change lives especially in rural areas,” Minister Rwangombwa said.

    Rwangombwa aims for poverty to drop further by 15% in next five years as growth in key sectors of the economy is expected to accelerate.

    The annual Emerging Markets Central Bank Governor and Finance Minister of the Year Awards recognise the leading policymakers in each region. The awards are chosen by Emerging Markets’ editorial team, taking into account the views of leading regional experts.

    The winners are announced in our daily newspapers published at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings each year, with the award winning policy makers honoured at an annual awards ceremony during the IMF and World Bank annual meetings.

    Emerging Markets is a unique source of news, analysis and commentary on economic policy, international economics and global financial markets, with a particular focus on the emerging world. Emerging Markets has published daily newspapers at IMF, World Bank and regional development bank meetings for the past 25 years. Emerging Markets is part of Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, one of the largest and most respected providers of financial information worldwide.

  • Bralirwa Shares Hit New High Price

    The Rwanda Stock Exchange Friday indicated that market prices continued an upward trend as Bralirwa share hit a new high price of Rwf 436.

    The total turnover for the day was Rwf 22,956,000 from 136,100 BK shares and 12,100 Bralirwa shares traded in nine deals compared to yesterday’s trading session which recorded a turnover of Rwf 6,780,200 from 2,000 BK shares and 15,100 Bralirwa shares traded in four deals.

    BK shares traded and closed at Rwf 130, unchanged from yesterday’s closing price while BRALIRWA shares traded between Rwf 430 and Rwf 436 and closed at Rwf 436; registering an increase of Rwf 4 compared to yesterday’s closing price. KCB and NMG shares prices last transacted at Rwf 154 and Rwf 1,200 respectively.

    At the end of formal trading hours, there were outstanding bids of 1,097,900 BK shares at Rwf 130 and outstanding offers of 200,500 shares at Rwf 131 and Rwf 132. On Bralirwa counter, there were outstanding bids of 100,000 shares at Rwf 430 and no outstanding offers.