Business

Food production at risk

Due to shortages, Namibia will remain a net importer of food products, which means consumers remain vulnerable to global and regional food price developments.

Farmers in South Africa are continuing engagements with their national power utility, Eskom, the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) said yesterday.

Agbiz has also been engaged in various meetings with the department of agriculture, land reform andrural development and Eskom to find ways to ease the pressure on agribusinesses.

“In the near term, Agbiz has urged for less severe load-shedding in areas under irrigation and food-processing facilities,” it said.

In crucial field crops, roughly 20% of maize, 15% of soya beans, 34% of sugarcane, and nearly half of the wheat production are produced under irrigation, which are faced with severe challenges due top ersistently hot and dry conditions, coupled with constrained ability to irrigate.

Agbiz said fruit and vegetables also heavily rely on irrigation and the production of these crops are thus faced with similar challenges.

Similarly, in the dairy industry, aquaculture, red meat, poultry, animal feed manufacturing and piggeriesthere are concerns that load-shedding beyond stage 2 made operations and planning challenging, as these industries all require continuous power to operate.

Agribusinesses face similar challenges in various downstream processing activities, such as milling, bakeries, abattoirs, wine processing, packaging, and animal vaccine production.

Analysts at Simonis Storm Securities say it remains to be seen whether the La Niña phenomenon will bring adequate, timely, and sufficient rain which Namibian crop farmers need, especially in the north. Last year, due to late rainfalls, the maize triangle experienced major crop harvest losses of over 60%.

“We, therefore remain fairly negative on observing improved crop production figures for 2023,” the analysts said.

Credit: The Namibian

The SARB increased the Repo Rate by 25 basis points 

The South African Reserve Bank has announced a 25 basis points hike in the repurchase rate (repo rate) to 7.25%, taking the prime lending rate in the country to 10.75%. The governor of the bank, Lesetja Kganyago, explained that high inflation and weak economic growth continue to shape global conditions, with risks to the inflation outlook assessed to the upside. He also noted that the bank now expects South African national output to grow by just 0.3% due to load-shedding and other factors.

The Bank of Namibia(Bon) is expected to hike the repo rate by 25 basis points when the MPC meets next month. According to a local Research firm Simonis Storm, a 25bps is likely as the BoN progresses on a gradual reduction in the pace of rate hikes and reaching the end of the local hiking cycle.

Fuel prices to remain unchanged

The Ministry of Mines and Energy in Namibia has announced that fuel prices will remain unchanged in February due to the National Energy Fund absorbing the under-recoveries on behalf of fuel consumers to the tune of approximately N$50 million. The Ministry also cited that international oil prices have been inconsistent over the past 24 months and that the costs of shipping petroleum products in 2023 will be significantly higher than it was in 2022. Namibian fuel prices decreased in December, with diesel prices being reduced by N$2.20 per litre and petrol prices by N$1.80 per litre. The country consumes an average of 90 million litres of fuel per month, with 60 million litres being diesel and 30 million liters being petrol.

Tech

MTC’s collection of customer’s sensitive personal information a major concern

Mobile Telecommunications company (MTC) has been criticized for collecting sensitive personal information such as fingerprint and face biometrics in its SIM registration process. Cybercrime and data protection policy researcher Frederico Links says the harvesting of biometric data is a violation of privacy in a legal vacuum because Namibia does not have a data privacy law. He also says that MTC should explain how and whether it is securely storing that data. The Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (Cran) says that mobile operators such as MTC are not prohibited from collecting face and fingerprint recognition data from their clients, but they are only required to collect customer identification information as stipulated in the authority's regulations and conditions. Namibia has been urged to expedite the process of enacting appropriate data protection laws to guarantee the data protection and privacy rights of its citizens.

Why are Big Tech Companies laying off workers?

Tech companies are laying off workers because investors have changed how they're evaluating companies. With the pandemic, many companies saw a rapid increase in revenue from e-commerce and other online businesses. As a result, many companies hired more employees to match and fuel that growth. However, now that the pandemic is subsiding, investors are being more cautious and are looking for companies to focus on profits rather than growth. This means that companies are now looking for ways to cut costs and increase efficiency, which in some cases, may involve layoffs. Additionally, companies may be consolidating teams and programs to further prioritize what matters most to customers and the business. This also involves layoffs, as some teams and projects may be deemed unnecessary or redundant. The job cuts are not necessarily performance-related, but rather a strategic decision to align with the current economic environment and investor expectations.

Brazil and Argentina plan to launch a joint currency

Brazil and Argentina have announced plans to launch a joint currency, which could eventually become a euro-like project adopted by all of South America. The countries' leaders, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Argentine President Alberto Fernández, said in a joint statement that a common currency could help to boost South American trade by simplifying and modernizing rules and promoting the use of local currencies. The countries are planning to eventually allow other South American countries to use the currency in order to create the world's second-largest currency bloc. The joint currency, which is planned to be called the "sur" (south), would initially run parallel to the Brazilian real and the Argentine peso and would be used in bilateral trade between Latin American countries. The move is part of an effort to "de-dollarize" or move away from using the US dollar, which currently dominates trade in the region. However, this type of common currency can also spread economic shocks between the countries that have adopted it, and past proposals for a South American currency have been met with skepticism due to concerns about the volatility of economies in the region and high levels of inflation and debt.

Personal Development

Writer Sarah Perry on how to build an exercise habit you actually enjoy (or any habit, really):

"Unfortunately, most on-ramps to exercise are at an intensity too high for previously-sedentary people to find them pleasurable. If people go to a fitness class, or focus on running a particular distance at a particular speed, they’ll likely miss the pleasure zone entirely.

Refocusing on exercising only for one’s own individual pleasure, as slowly as one prefers, and only at intensities that are pleasurable, is more likely to motivate repeat and habitual exercising. At that point, the enjoyment of exercise pleasure can build on itself, motivating longer and longer intervals of experiencing the pleasure."

Source: Body Pleasure

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