As the woes continue in Zimbabwe, the central bank’s governor in Zimbabwe, Gideon Gono said today, “Statistics provided by the CSO (central statistical office) indicate that it is now at 2.2 (million percent).” This referring to the rate of inflation in the country. This is clearly the highest rate of inflation in the world. And this figure released of 2.2m% can not be totally accurate with many suggesting that the rate of inflation is actually much higher than this. The last official announcement about the rate of inflation was in February this year when it was said that inflation was 165 000%.

It is still anyone guess how they can actually still be able to calculate the rate of inflation in Zimbabwe with the way things our going in their economy. An inflation rate of 2.2m% really does not make sense to anyone who is not in Zimbabwe and maybe even for those in the country. If someone tells you that a cold drink is 20 billion dollars, one can not comprehend what the actual value is unless you convert it back into rands or US dollars.

There has been a lot of talk this week with regards to fuel stations closing down at night because of many of them are struggling to stay in business in the current economic conditions. There is also an element of added risk in operating a fuel station at night as there are more likely to be crimes at the fuel station at night than during the day. The idea of closing fuels stations at night has been met with mixed reactions from various stakeholders. For one; there is a proposal that if fuel stations want to remain open at night they would have to charge a 15% levy to consumers who decided to fill up their tanks during the night. Read the rest of this entry »

OAO Gazprom, Russia’s state- sponsored gas monopoly, is offering to buy all of Libya’s oil and gas exports in a bid to increase its dominance over Europe’s gas market and enhance Russia’s political clout throughout the region.

Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s chief executive, made the offer on July 9th at a meeting with Libya’s head of state, Muammer Gaddafi.

“Libya positively evaluated Gazprom’s proposition to buy all future volumes of gas, oil, and [liquefied natural gas] designed for export at market price,” Gazprom said in a statement after the meeting. Read the rest of this entry »

The JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) only opened at mid-afternoon today after a network problem forced the exchange not to function properly. The JSE have said that they are embarrassed by this forced delay as it has cost brokers a lot of money and in turn also cost the JSE money. The JSE has had a pretty impressive track record over the last couple of years of having very minimal down time. Such technical and networks areas are expected all the time but contingencies have to be put in place so that an errors have a back up. In todays situation, there clearly was not a suitable back up plan and thus trading on the JSE started much later than normal. Read the rest of this entry »

For income investors seeking dividends from international investments, the secret is to find companies with high dividend yields, but which aren’t operating in the kind of risky or highly cyclical business sectors that will make those dividends vulnerable.

In other words, what you don’t want to see is a situation where you buy into a stock for its hefty dividend yield - only to have the board of directors of that company suddenly decide that it needs to conserve cash. For instance, Telecomunicacoes de Sao Paulo SA (ADR: TSP), the fixed-line telephone system in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has a dividend yield of no less than 14%. However the company’s profit margins are under attack by the aggressive cellphone operators in the country and its earnings seem likely to decline. Indeed, the consensus forecast for TSP’s 2008 earnings is about 30% less than the dividend payout, suggesting that dividends will be forced downward - unless the company starts liquidating itself. Read the rest of this entry »

Data supplied on Wednesday (9 July) by the Central Energy Fund showed South Africa’s daily unleaded petrol price moved into an over-recovery situation on July 8 2008 for the first time since December 19 2007. This basically means that the basic petrol price based on the daily product price and exchange rate is less than the basic fuel price used in the calculation of the monthly retail petrol. Therefore, the retail petrol price can be lowered at the next monthly price adjustment, provided the government does not introduce a new levy or raise either the wholesale or retail margin.

We will only know what the situation is on 6 August which is when any petrol price adjustments are made. It would be a shock to many in South Africa if the price of fuel comes down. We have gotten so used to hearing that the price is going up. But even if this minor price decrease happens, the long term does not look too great as inflation continues to rise and the world oil prices which have a direct impact on the price of fuel, continue to reach record highs.

Melvin Chagonda is the Chief Executive of PRIMEDIA@HOME: The leaders of Precision Marketing in South Africa. They look at any advertising opportunities that focus on getting The Right Product, to the Right Person in the Right Place at the Right time. Their 34 branch network covers the whole of South Africa and services Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho. Their product offering includes Direct to home distribution to over 11million houses in Southern Africa, Activations at Schools, malls, beaches and corporate canteens. They also have a diverse range of products, such as on shelf advertising dispensers, industry diaries and Cell C community chat advertising amongst others.

Today Melvin Chagonda answers 11 questions in 60 seconds from TheRandToday.com : Read the rest of this entry »