Archives of Economy & Business

The Venezuelan government is readying to hand over control over state oil company PDVSA to Russia’s Rosneft, a local newspaper has reported, citing sources from the industry. Russian TASS reports, quoting El Nacional, that the radical move is being discussed as a way of erasing Caracas’ debt to Moscow. The debt is sizeable: at the […]

Global commodity prices rose 3.8% over the previous month in September, contrasting August’s 5.3% drop and marking the strongest increase in five months. September’s rebound mostly reflected a surge in energy prices, as well as sizeable increases in prices for base and precious metals. Overall, the price for the three commodity groups was positively affected […]

Saudi Arabia to approve IPO this week. Saudi Arabia is expected to give official approval to the IPO of Saudi Aramco this week. “Aramco’s IPO will take place sooner than you think,” Yasir al-Rumayyan, chairman of Aramco, told the FT. The plans involve a public offering of 3 percent of the company on the domestic […]

Moçambique pretende liberalizar, a partir de 2019, a produção, transporte, distribuição e comercialização de energia eléctrica, disse recentemente um representante do Ministério dos Recursos Minerais e Energia. Telma Nkutumula, jurista e representante do ministério num debate realizado na cidade de Chimoio, província de Manica, disse ainda que a liberalização terá como consequência a revogação da […]

O governo de Angola deverá colocar em leilão novos blocos para prospecção petrolífera em 2019, anunciou o ministro dos Recursos Minerais e Petróleos, Diamantino Azevedo. O ministro, citado pela agência noticiosa Angop, adiantou que os blocos a serem levados a leilão são tanto em terra como no mar, sendo que em terra serão nas bacias […]

Agricultural prices declined for the third month in a row in August, amid strong supply for key commodities. Agricultural prices fell 0.5% month-on-month in August, but notably less than July’s 4.3% decrease.A base effect from last year and solid market fundamentals will lead agricultural prices to rise at a double-digit pace of 12.2% in Q4 […]

Base metal prices declined for the second consecutive month in August mostly reflecting cooling growth in China, which consumes nearly half of all base metals. Prices for base metals declined 3.0% over the previous month in August. Nevertheless, this was well below July’s 9.2% month-on-month drop, which represented the sharpest decrease in over eight years.

Energy prices continued to fluctuate in recent weeks as the evolution of oil prices and its derivatives are shaped by an unpredictable global economic outlook. Energy prices fell 1.3% month-on-month in August, contrasting July’s 0.5% increase. In the first half of August, oil prices were negatively affected by escalating trade tensions between China and the […]

The government’s commitment to structural reforms seemed to carry over into the post-election period, with the Macroeconomic Stabilization Program which includes economic policies and anticorruption efforts underway. On 16 August the government announced the launch of a new petroleum and gas agency which is set to handle oil concessions starting from 2019. The agency is […]

The ongoing global risk-off sent the rand into a freefall in early August and looks bound to fan inflationary pressures over the coming months. Meanwhile, a quarter-on-quarter contraction in the first quarter—held back by a fall in investment and moderating household spending—highlights the economic hurdles facing Ramaphosa as next year’s general election looms.