Business

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the direction of government’s fiscal policy from fiscal consolidation to mitigation of the spread and impacts of the virus in the country. Additional expenditure has been considered to provide for the fight against Covid-19, increasing the already high government spending, while revenue is expected to fall to the lowest level. 

The Namibian economy is projected to contract by 6.6% in real terms during the 2020/21 financial year. Finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi on Wednesday cautioned that this contraction may linger on well into 2021 at a moderate rate of 1.1%, with the new normal average growth rates of between 2.0 and 3.6% in 2022 and beyond.  

A shift towards cleaner fossil fuels and natural gas has been identified as critical for the energy agenda in Africa to develop in a sustainable manner.

Conrad Dempsey, currently CEO of RMB Namibia, will take over the reins of one of the largest financial services institutions in the country.
 He has been appointed group CEO designate effective 1 July 2020, and will officially become CEO of the FirstRand Group effective 1 October 2020. 

Namibia’s first telecommunications provider MTC on Wednesday launched its latest market offering termed “Multiple Aweh” product solution. This solution will enable customers to subscribe to more than one and up to three Aweh subscriptions at a time. 

Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states should be developing roadmaps and action plans that prioritise investments and channel scarce resources to identified economic sectors to resuscitate their economies, strengthen resilience and improve competitiveness.

The Meat Corporation of Namibia (Meatco) and the Namibian Food and Allied Workers Union (Nafau) signed the revised recognition and procedural agreement last week.

The FNB Rental Index for the first quarter of 2020 shows that overall residential rent prices rebounded from a two-year negative growth territory.
However, Frans Uusiku, FNB Market Research Manager cautioned that the Covid-19 lockdown is bound to paint a different picture when looking at quarter two of 2020. 

Following its recent donation of 53 tents towards the Covid-19 homeless shelter initiative by the Ministry of Health & Social Services, Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL) followed up with further support of this project, with a beverage donation valued at close to N$100 000.

Namibia went into lockdown several weeks ago; our government’s firm and swift response has so far kept the number of infections very low. Thankfully, no deaths have been recorded and Namibia may come out of this quite well.