“Very important that OPEC increase the flow of Oil. World Markets are fragile, price of Oil getting too high. Thank you!” Trump said on Twitter at around 1230 GMT.

Oil prices took a brief, sharp turn downward after the statement before recovering somewhat.

Near 1300 GMT, US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate for May delivery was down 88 cents at $58.53 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Since becoming president, Trump has periodically put pressure the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to open the taps to add more supply to the market and lower prices.

OPEC in December reached a deal to with Russia and some other producers to limit output to shore up prices.

Since January, US oil futures have risen 28.6 percent while oil futures in London have gained 23.9 percent.

The new economic direction for the next two months has already been seen as growth and investment inducer, notwithstanding the size. It is capable of creating loan renegotiations if sustained and is a test of rate cut environment.

Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) members had held on to the rates for nearly three years, despite calls by real sector operators in a three-fold fight against inflation, exchange rate manipulations and attraction of foreign inflows, as the economy slipped into and exited recession.

Their pessimism rode on the back of precedents and the recent remark by CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele that the issues that led to the economic crisis of 2015-2017 remained visible, hence the need to be alert to domestic and global developments.

But yesterday, he called the decision a “new direction” saying: “This rate cut is meant to signal that there is a need for us to move course a little further. To do so, we need to begin to look at money supply and liquidity to push growth.”

The Chief Executive Officer of Cowry Asset Management Limited, Johnson Chukwu, described the development as positive “ambush” of all projections, but more importantly, a sign of returning confidence in the economy.

He said that the decision has three immediate impacts: assurance to the private sector; boost to investments; and sustenance of foreign investments inflow.

“While structural issues constraining lending persist, we cannot rule out the impact of 50 basis points downward adjustment on cost of funding. That is a boost to investments and borrowing for economic activity. There is expected movement from fixed income segment to the equities segment by the rate adjustment. It is not enough to sway foreign inflow, because already, fixed income yields have compressed at about 12 and 13 per cent,” he said.

The research analyst at FXTM, Lukman Otunuga, said investors were caught completely off-guard with the unexpected cut in benchmark interest rate for the first time in years by CBN. “Today’s move by the CBN may open the doors to further rate cuts in the future, especially if macroeconomic conditions continue to improve and inflation cools further,” he said.

The Head of Research at FSDH Merchant Bank Limited, Ayodele Akinwunmi, said the decision was based on the relative stability in inflation rate and exchange rate but noted that it would only subsist if there is no adjustment in the pump price of petrol and electricity tariff.

“The cost of servicing the debt of the government may also drop. And with complementary fiscal policies to improve business environment, lending to the private sector may increase,” he said.

Analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited were however not convinced that an easing cycle by the apex bank has begun, as the current move remains subject to global interest rate development and is tainted by “desperation to sustain and retain flows.”

They noted: “In addition, credit to private sector is not expected to improve on the back of rate reduction as structural bottlenecks and elevated business risk environment remain drags to credit creation.”

Stock market operators described the MPR cut as a positive development that would spur liquidity in the equities market.

The equities market has been on a downward note in the last few years due to the mouthwatering yield the fixed income market offers to investors. But with the cut, operators said the segment of the market would be depressed while the yield remains unattractive.

Specifically, a professor of capital market and head, banking and finance department, Nasarawa State University Keffi, Uche Uwaleke, said: “The reduced MPR will also be positive for the capital market as some of the increased liquidity that will ensue will flow into the equities market. Also, it will be cheaper for the government to issue bonds, given that part of this year’s budget deficit will be financed through domestic borrowing.”

The Head of Research in FSL Capital Limited, Victor Chiazor, said it is a good development as it is expected to propel inflow of funds into the equities market.

He said once yield in the fixed income market continues to nosedive, investors would be compelled to look for other investment securities for better returns.

“It is expected to cause a reduction in yield of securities in the fixed income market and once this happens, investors would have no other choice but to return to the equities market where stocks like Zenith Bank would offer a better dividend yield.

“But CBN must keep yield slightly depressed, so that investors would not pick interest in the fixed income market and this would attract more patronage of the equities market,” he said.

The Mental Health Foundation (MHF) charity commissioned the survey to look at the impact of Britain’s impending departure from the European Union on how people feel, their sleep and their relationships.

The poll found that Brexit had made 43 percent feel powerless, 39 percent feel angry and 38 percent feel worried.

Some 26 percent said Brexit had not caused them to feel any particular emotions in the last 12 months.

But 17 percent said it had caused them “high levels of stress”, while 12 percent reported that it had caused them sleeping problems.

Some said Brexit had made them feel hopeful (nine percent), happy (three percent) or confident (two percent).

In the 2016 referendum on Britain’s EU membership, 52 percent voted in favour of leaving while 48 percent backed remaining in the bloc.

MHF chief executive Mark Rowland told AFP that people who voted Remain were reporting three times the level of anxiety of Leave supporters.

“But in relation to powerlessness, you actually see that the differences between Remain voters and Leave voters are very equal,” he said.

“So everyone across the political spectrum is feeling like their ability to control what happens is very small.”

Geographically, he added, “the closer you get to London, the more concerned people are. Despite the fact that probably the impact of Brexit is going to be less on metropolitan areas.”

The terms of Brexit are yet to be decided, with Britain due to leave the European Union in seven days’ time unless an extension is agreed between London and Brussels.

The MHF charity, founded in 1949, aims to help people understand, protect and sustain their mental health.

Rowland reflected on the small percentage saying they were losing sleep over Brexit.

“Most people are actually able to get on with their lives and separate their concern about Brexit from their own personal and emotional response,” he said.

Pollsters YouGov conducted the online survey of 1,823 British adults between March 12 and 13.

The government’s HK$624 billion proposal to reclaim 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) of land around the territory’s largest island, Lantau, has been touted as a solution to the pressing housing shortage in the city, which is notorious as one of the least affordable markets on the planet.

Authorities said they hope to start work on reclaiming land in 2025, with an eye on allowing residents to move to the island in 2032.

The artificial island — the city’s most expensive infrastructure project to date — would be four times the cost of building Hong Kong International Airport, which opened on Lantau in 1998, and far outstrip Dubai’s famous palm-tree shaped Palm Jumeirah, which reportedly cost $12 billion to build.

The man-made island would be nearly three times the size of New York’s Central Park and provide up to 260,000 flats, more than 70 percent of which would be used for public housing, the government has said.

But critics say the vast reclamation project is too costly and could damage the environment, especially marine life, with many also expressing frustration over the lack of a public say in the plans.

“When all aspects of Hong Kong’s public services and facilities are on the brink of collapse, will the (Lantau project) — as the government’s panacea — solve problems or create a bigger crisis?” pro-democracy lawmaker Eddie Chu said on his Facebook page.

He estimated the cost of the project could balloon to more than $112 billion by 2025, when reclamation work is expected to start.

Authorities are also planning to build another 700-hectare artificial island around Lantau, but have not released any further details about that project or its cost.

Lantau island is also home to a new mega bridge launched last year — billed as the world’s longest sea bridge — connecting Hong Kong to neighbouring Macau and mainland China at a time when Beijing is seeking to tighten its grip on its semi-autonomous territories.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the plans for the artificial island.

Campaigners have also warned that the dwindling number of much-loved pink dolphins in waters surrounding Lantau may disappear altogether due to large-scale infrastructure projects.

“In recent weeks, we have seen the serious damage caused by the drums of war,” Morales told a meeting of European and Latin American lawmakers.

“We condemn all forms of armed violence in our lands and reject the aggression of the United States,” he said, addressing the Euro-Latin American (EUROLAT) parliamentary assembly in the eastern city of Santa Cruz.

“From Bolivia, we renounce and warn the international community that once again seeks to confront fraternal countries, to fragment our Latin American and Caribbean unity,” said the president, a close ally of Venezuela’s socialist leader.

Morales has often repeated support for the socialist regime of the embattled Maduro, and lashed out at what he said were US plans to appropriate Venezuela’s oil wealth.

He recently dismissed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido’s attempts to bring humanitarian aid into the country as a “Trojan Horse” that would precede US military intervention.

Spain’s Ramon Jauregui, co-president of the assembly, told a press conference that the European Union recognized Guaido as interim president, and reiterated its commitment to reject military intervention.

Analysis by global think-tank, Wood Mackenzie, and other stakeholders in Nigeria, expect limited changes in the direction of the nation’s economy and the oil and gas sector.

Indeed, the stakeholders insisted that expected reforms that would drive investment, economic growth, and job creation might remain a mirage for the next four years.

Director, sub-Saharan Africa Research at Wood Mackenzie, Gail Anderson, said: “A second term means stability within key state bodies, such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. Of course, the President could take the opportunity to re-shuffle personnel, although we expect little change in direction.”

Anderson equally expressed pessimism over economic growth, as the tight control of the monetary policy will continue.

“In his first term, Buhari presided over collapsing oil prices, production outages, and a depreciating currency. The economic climate now is better than it was in 2015, but we expect no change in his economic approach, which is about tight control over Nigeria’s monetary policy and its main revenue earner, oil and gas,” she noted.

The analysis comes as stakeholders rated the administration poor in economic performance.
An earlier report by Bloomberg Economics had noted that, “If President Muhammadu Buhari wins another four-year term; it will probably mean more political interference in Nigeria’s economy and slower growth.”

With $200 billion stranded investment because of failure by successive governments to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill, stakeholders expressed doubt over anticipated reform in the sector, as the President, who doubles as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, earlier turned down the document, which would have tackled critical challenges in the sector.

With the ruling APC regaining control of the National Assembly, Anderson added that are no guarantees of the bill becoming a reality. “The legislative route to reform will likely hit a roadblock.”

This will in turn affect investment inflow into Nigeria, as investors await the assent to the bill.
“With major final investment decisions (FIDs) highly unlikely until the issue is resolved, these negotiations will go a long way to determining whether Nigeria’s world-class deepwater has an attractive long-term future. There is a lot at stake in the next four years,” she argued.

Founder and Principal Partner, Nextier, Patrick Okigbo, said unless the administration urgently put in place legal, regulatory, and fiscal framework to guide investments in the petroleum sector, Buhari’s second tenure will not achieve the expected results.

“For 18 years, various governments have made unsuccessful attempts to pass a petroleum industry bill. At the start of President Buhari’s first term, the bill was disaggregated into four bills for easy of passage. The first of the bills, Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, made it all the way through the National Assembly to the President for his assent. President Buhari did not grant the assent for a number of reasons. This means that there is still great uncertainty in Nigeria’s petroleum industry, and as such, it will be difficult for any serious local or foreign investment to make a big bet on Nigeria,” Okigbo insisted.

With the Senate President, Bukola Saraki’s loss at the poll, Okigbo noted that the current administration could pass the bill.
“The expectation is that now it appears that the APC has control of both the Presidency and the legislature, they will be able to drive through the bill. This, however, depends on the philosophical leanings of the current administration on that spectrum from capitalism to socialism or from market-facing to statist ideologies,” he added.

A Professor of Economics at the University of Ibadan, Adeola Adenikinju, called on the President to ensure that issues relating to subsidy payment and dilapidated refineries should be urgently addressed.

Adenikinju, who is the Director of Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law, expects a synergy between the executive and the legislative to douse the uncertainty in the sector.

The company said it had taken the “precautionary step” of informing customers whose cars are due to be delivered after March 29, the day Britain leaves the European Union, that they could become more expensive if new border tariffs are imposed.

“As one potential outcome of the Brexit negotiations, there is a possibility that a duty of up to 10 percent may be applied to cars imported into the UK,” Stuttgart-based Porsche said in a statement, adding that drivers could still make changes to their order.

Customers who had already paid a deposit by January 17 will not be affected by the potential tariff hikes, it added.

It remains uncertain whether Britain will strike a deal with the EU by March 29, and car manufacturers have joined other industries in calling for urgent clarity on what the future trade relationship might look like.

Business leaders fear a hard or no-deal Brexit could lead to import duties on EU goods arriving into the UK and different regulatory requirements that would badly disrupt supply chains.

Porsche sold 14,000 cars in Britain in 2017, making it the firm’s second-biggest market in Europe after Germany.

According to Bloomberg News, the starting price of Porsche’s Macan compact SUV would jump from £46,344 (52,880 euros, $59,825) to £50,978 if the 10-percent surcharge were imposed.

The factory in Swindon, southwest England, which is Honda’s only EU plant, will shut in 2021 “at the end of the current model’s production lifecycle”, the company said as carmakers worldwide increasingly invest in greener electric vehicles over diesel cars.

Business Secretary Greg Clark described Honda’s decision as “devastating” and “a particularly bitter blow to the thousands of skilled and dedicated staff who work at the factory, their families and all of those employed in the supply chain”.

Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to Honda’s president to “express her disappointment at the decision,” according to her Downing Street office.

Katsushi Inoue, Honda’s chief officer for European regional operations, said the decision had “not been taken lightly”.

The firm blamed “unprecedented changes in the global automotive industry” for the decision but it comes amid investment uncertainty in Britain ahead of the country’s departure from the European Union next month.

Analysts said an EU-Japan trade agreement signed recently had likely also played a part in Honda’s decision.

Clark said that while Honda’s decision was made for “commercial” reasons, it was nonetheless “devastating… for Swindon and the UK”.

He added in a statement: “The automotive industry is undergoing a rapid transition to new technology. The UK is one of the leaders in the development of these technologies and so it is deeply disappointing that this decision has been taken now.”

Brexit clouds
Speaking earlier in Tokyo, Honda president Takahiro Hachigo told reporters: “I’d like you to understand this is not related to Brexit.”

Clark later told parliament that “we must accept” Honda’s stated reasons, but added “the motor industry, Japanese investors and Honda in particular have been very clear for many months that Brexit is an additional worry at a difficult time.”

Nissan earlier this month axed plans to make its X-Trail SUV in the Brexit-backing UK city of Sunderland, citing “business reasons” but also uncertainty over Britain’s EU departure.

Toyota, another Japanese car giant making vehicles in Britain, has meanwhile warned there would be no way to avoid a negative impact should the UK crash out of the EU without a deal.

The Bank of England earlier this month slashed its forecast for 2019 UK growth to 1.2 percent from 1.7 percent, blaming the downgrade on a global economic slowdown and “the fog of Brexit”.

Honda’s fellow Japanese firms Sony, Panasonic and Hitachi are also scaling back their UK operations.

Regarding Honda’s decision, the company “seems to have been preparing for this for a long time”, Seiji Sugiura, analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute, told AFP.

“Then Brexit happened, which might have pushed the company to make the decision now.”

The carmaker’s Swindon plant has been producing Honda’s Civic model for more than 24 years, with 150,000 units rolling off the line annually.

The firm on Tuesday announced also that it would stop manufacturing the Civic model in Turkey in 2021.

‘No stone unturned’
In Swindon, local finance worker Sue Davis, 49, said the town is “finished without Honda”.

She told AFP: “My ex-husband works there, has done for 20 years. He’s going to be without a job, so I just think it’s really, really bad news.”

Local MP Justin Tomlinson tweeted that the decision had been made “based on global trends and not Brexit as all European market production will consolidate in Japan in 2021”.

Britain’s biggest union Unite said it would campaign to keep the plant open.

“We will leave no stone unturned to keep this plant going and its workforce in employment,” said Des Quinn, Unite’s national officer for the automotive sector.

“While Brexit is not mentioned by the company as a reason for the announcement, we believe that the uncertainty that the Tory government has created by its inept and rigid handling of the Brexit negotiations lurks in the background.”

The Profit after Tax was lower than the N31.6 billion recorded in 201, representing a 41 per cent decline, while revenue also dipped six per cent from the N344.5 billion recorded in 2017.

According to the audited financial results released to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), the company’s directors are recommending a total dividend of N19.4 billion, culminating to N2.43 kobo per share representing 100 per cent dividend pay-out ratio.

Nigerian Breweries had earlier, in 2018, paid an interim dividend of N4.8 billion, which translated to N0.60 kobo per share; thus, the final dividend will be N14.6 billion, that is, N1.83 kobo per share.

If the proposed final dividend is approved, this will become payable on May 20th, to all shareholders whose names appear on the company’s register of members at the close of business on the 6th of March, 2019.

In the statement signed by the company Secretary/Legal Director, Uaboi Agbebaku, the 2018 Profit after Tax was lower than the N31.6 billion recorded in 2017 representing a forty one per cent decline, while the Revenue also dipped from the N344.5 billion recorded in 2017, a six percent decline.

The statement added that the 2018 Results were adversely impacted by the increased excise duty rates that came into effect during the year and a challenging operating environment.

The bond, which is unsecured with a tenor of seven years at a fixed rate of 16.50 per cent is part of a N65 billion Debt Issuance Programme of the bank to enable it finance its new business strategy and digital banking. Under the new business strategy, Sterling Bank will build expertise in the sectors at its heart, which include Health, Education, Agriculture, Renewable energy and Transportation, because of the strong belief that this will positively impact the society.

Speaking at the NSE and FMDQ, the Managing Director and Chief Executive of Sterling Bank, Abubakar Suleiman, said the success of the bond reflected the increasing appetite of local institutional investors for long-term debt instruments.He noted that investors are happy with the very strong outcome, which shows investors’ confidence in Sterling Bank, and further strengthens and diversifies our corporate funding strategy.

He said the bank looked forward to same peerless support for its future bond issues, and appreciated FMDQ for its strategic role in deepening the Nigerian DCM by facilitating active secondary market trades, and promoting the transparency of the listed instruments.

Suleiman also appreciated stockbrokers for supporting the bank, adding that share price has reflected the true value of the bank.The Associate Executive Director, Capital Markets, FMDQ, Ms. Tumi Sekoni, congratulated the issuer for having successfully raised ₦32.90 billion from the Nigerian debt market.

She also commended the issuer for yet again joining the league of corporate entities whose debt profiles have been raised via the value-packed listing, quotations and noting service offered by FMDQ, for the second time.  She said the listing would contribute to the growth of the Nigerian corporate bond market, and consistently injecting renewed confidence into the debt market.

The Partner/Head, Investment Banking, Constant Capital Partners Limited,  Niyi Omojola, said: “Constant Capital, the lead  issuing house in this transaction, crafted a unique and innovative investment structure, which enabled the  Sterling SPV Bond share in the same investment grade rating as Sterling Bank Plc, thereby enlarging the range of potential investors in the bond.”  He said the innovative structure, protects investors by providing bond-backed credit enhancement while investing in the Tier II capital of Sterling Bank Plc.

The Associate Executive Director, Corporate Development, FMDQ, Ms. Kaodi Ugoji, congratulated the issuer and sponsor of the issue for the remarkable feat in the DCM, and expressed the FMDQ’s gratitude for the issuer’s decision to list the bond on FMDQ. According to her, being listed on FMDQ will avail the bond unprecedented market transparency, unrivalled information disclosure, efficient price formation and improved global visibility, among other benefits.