DAILY TRUST
Monday, January 10, 2011
27
Business/International
Tanzan·ia ~op coffee prices hit season high TANZANIA'S top coffee prices hit their highest levels of the season at this year's first auction as demand was high and supply declined, regulator Tanzania Coffee Board
(TCB) said on Friday. The price of the benchmark grade AA coffee rose to a high.of $318.80 per 50-kg bag from $289 per bag at the last sale on December 16. "We have recorded the highest price for the entire season this week. Demand for coffee is high at the resumption of the weekly auction:' Primus Kimaryo, TCB director of quality and promotion at the state coffee board, told Reuters. "The supply of coffee has declined because some parts of the country are at the end of their harvest season. Prices at the terminal are high, so we expect to have good prices overall at our auctions:' Traders also said they expect coffee prices to remain high in the run·up to the end of the season in March-April. Average prices of all grades slipped in the auction, however. "Overall average price at
Rioting over food prices subsides in Algeria SEVERAL Algerian towns thathadexperienced days of rioting were returning to normal yesterday, local people said, alier a flare-up ofunrest tJiggered by a sharp rise in food prices. There were no reports oflarge-scale disturbances overnight, the first night of relative calm since rioting broke out on Wednesday in the capital and then spread to several cities across the energy exportingcountry. In its first response to the protests, in which two people were killed, the govemmentsaidonSaturdayitwouldcutthecost
of some foodstuftS, and promised to do whatever is necessary to protect Algerians from rising food prices. Dozens of municipal employees in the town ofBou Ismail, west of the capi· tal Algiers, were earlyon Sunday clearing streets of stones and burned tyres left by protesters, a Reuters reporter in the town said. One man was killed in dashes in the town, on Algeria's Mediterranean coast, on Friday night. Calm also returned to neighbourhoods inAlgiers, whereon previous nights crowds of young men had thrown projectiles at
police and also ransacked shops and other buildings. Many traders had boarded up their stores since the unrest started "The shops are open. Everything here is normal today. I hope we will spend a quiet night;' said a resident in the working class Bab El Oued neighbourhood in Algiers, where some of the most violent clashes took place. Measures announced by the governmeot on Saturday include a suspension of customs duties and value added tax on imports of sugar and cooking oil, whose soaringpricestriggeredtheunrest(Reuters)
51 Africa stocks drop on miners, rand reverses losses SOUTH African resource· heavy stocks slipped on Friday, as a stronger dollar induced investors to talce profit from firmer mining shares. 1he rand reversed earlier losses against the greenback despite data showing the central bank took advantage ofits gains in December to build up foreign cur· rency reserves. The JSE Top·40 index of blue chips
was down 0.68 percentt028,415.54, while ct,e broader All·share index dropped 0.58 percentto 31,929.72. "It's just the miners that have brought us down:' David Shapiro, a trader at Sas· fin said. The JSE gold mining indices fell 0.97 percent, bringing its decline in the yeare to·date to 5.1 percent. Charts suggest the index has a plenty of upside. It's 14-day
relative strength index is around 34, just above the oversold level of30. The world's third-biggest platinum producer Lonmin lost 1.9 percent to 199 rand and AngloGold Ashanti dropped 1.79 percentto 306.90 rand. Bourseand mining heavyweight BHP Billiton was down 1.51 percent to 262.30 rand andrival miner Anglo American lost 1.43 percent.w 344.90 rand. (Reuters)
US grants Malawi $3S0m to upgrade power supply THE U.S. government MiIIerutium Challenge Corporation has given Malawi a $350 million grant to overhaul its energy sector,· whose dire condition is a major brake on the African state's economic growth. A U.S. statement said the five-year grant should help improve MalaMs erratic power supply, which economists say costs the country about $215 million a year and deters new investment According to its energy ministry, Malawi had 63 days of power outages in
2009, one ofthe worst performances in the sub-Saharan region. Its current installed electricity capacity is 282.5 MW compared to estimated demand of 344 MW, and only seven percent of the 13 million population have access to electricity, with the rest relying on firewood and charcoal for energy. Despite the constraints of its power system, Malawi has been one .of the world's fastest growing economies in the last few years, due in large part to a
fertilizer subsidy progranune that has boosted farm yields. The IMF said in October farming output was flattening off -- a cause for concern -- but still raised its 2010 gmwth furecast to 7 percent from 6.3 to reflect the expansion ofthe mining sector, especially the opening of a uranium mine in the north of the country. Even with the strong growth, Malawi remains heavily dependent on foreign aid, with donors underwriting as much as 40 percent ofits !)lIdget. (Reuters)
Moshi exchange for mild arabica was down by $1.47 per 50 kgs and robusta was down by $2.30 per 50 kgs compared to the last auction:' TCB said in its latest auction report. East African coffee is normally packed in 60-kg bags, but prices are quoted for quantities of 50 kg. "Prices of other coffee beans declined because of low quality, but coffee coming in from northern Tanzania is of the highest quality and fetched the highest prices:' said Kimaryo. Benchmark-grade AA sold at $210.00-$318.80 per bag, compared with $205.00·$289.00 per bag previously. The average price waS $262.82 per bag, up from $250.13 pre· viously. Grade A fetched $199.00-$282.80 per bag, compared with $207.00·$282.00 per bag at the previous sale, and got an average price of$261.35, up from $250.55 previously. Staterun TCB said 12,821 60-kg bags were offered at the latest sale and 10,067 bags were sold. At the previous sale, a total of26,732 60·kg bags were up for sale, with 24,223 bags sold. Tanzania produces mainly arabica and some robusta coffee. Prices of its arabica nornlally track the New York market, while those of robusta take their cue from London. TCB forecasts the 2010/11 (Tune/April) crop will rise to 55,000 tonnes in the continent's fourth-largest coftee grmver after Ethiopia, Uganda and Ivory Coast, from 36,000 tonnes in the last season. The auction was held on Thursday and TCB issued the results 011 Friday. (Reuters)
Kenya Ai rways' domestic passengers up 35% in December PASSENGERS carried by Kenya Airwayson its domestic roules rose 35 percent during the past holiday season on the back of increased flights and a new route, the airline said on Friday. . The carrier, which is26 percent owned by Air France-KLM, in October estimated it would carry 3 million passengers in the year through March 2011, up from 2.7 million a year earlier. It said cargo hauled would rise to 60,000 tonnes in the same period from 57,700 in 2009. Although the airlioe's strategy hinges on linking Africa to the world through its Nairobi hub, domestic travelers are an important part ofits business. It serves the western city ofKisumu and the coast. Soaring demand for travel to the coastal city of Mombasa by holidaymalcers led to an increase in ·the frequency of daily flights from 10 from seven, rising to 16 flights in the run-up to Christmas, Kenya Airways said. Total domestics flights during the period jumped 84 percent, the airline said in a statement, adding a new service to the resort town ofMalindi on the north coast had also contributed to the rise in passengers ferried Its shares were up 1.6 percent at 49.00 shillings. (Reuters)