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A private offering
of 164.8 million shares in Egypt’s Juhayna Food Industries was 1.75
times oversubscribed, the financial adviser to the placement said on
Sunday.

“The book closed
this morning, and we priced at 4.90 (Egyptian pounds, or $0.865), and
effectively this means that the public tranche will be priced at 4.66,”
said Karim Awad, head of investment banking at EFG-Hermes.

A public offering of 41.2 million shares began on Sunday morning and will continue until Thursday.

The
International Monetary Fund said global recovery will be hastened if
cooperation is embraced by the international community as
nation-oriented responses are not the way out.

“The
world avoided a great economic depression and will recover thanks to
close cooperation from the international community”, said the funds
head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. He noted that success came from the
approach championed by world leaders of the G-20 group of advanced and
emerging economies and the IMF at the height of the crisis.

Mr.
Strauss-Kahn who made the remarks during the kick-off to his week-long
trip to Brazil and Peru on solutions to the global crisis said,
“National oriented responses are not the way, since they risk creating
economic conflicts,” and that financial regulation in particular should
be coordinated internationally.

Concerns Remain

John
Lipsky, First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund at
the seminar, titled “Reshaping the Global Financial Landscape” said
unemployment is high across the globe and financial sectors still need
repairs.

He
said global recovery from the financial crisis that hit economies still
remains lethargic and uneven among nations while unemployment is high
across the globe.

“The global recovery remains sluggish, uneven and still in need of policy support”, he said.

According
to him, lingering challenges include high unemployment across the
globe, a financial sector still in need of repair, public debt rising
sharply in some countries – including most of the large advanced ones –
and the welcome resumption of large-scale capital inflows underscoring
the need for emerging market countries to prepare to meet new
challenges.

“History
tells us that the next crisis, if and when it comes, is unlikely to
exactly mirror recent events, but rather it will be rooted in new
vulnerabilities and transmitted through new channels. We should be
thinking now how to limit the potential dangers when new risks arise”
Mr. Lipsky said.

Looking ahead

Looking
ahead, the fund says it will examine further reforms of its lending
facilities in order to boost the availability of precautionary and
crisis financing for its membership.

“For
instance, we could make FCL qualification more predictable, while
extending its duration and scope. For those members that do not
qualify, alternative contingent instruments that have an element of
predictability and automaticity could be designed. At the same time,
the Fund is considering how it might be able to offer a short-term
contingent facility that would provide adequate liquidity in a timely
way in response to future market strains”.

With
recoveries taking shape, policymakers have turned their focus in recent
months to the pending issue of financial sector reform. The IMF says
this is entirely appropriate-as failures of financial regulation and
supervision were a major factor behind the current crisis.

Bismarck
Rewane, the managing Director, Financial Derivatives Company however
said the global recovery is now fairly stable. “The pace and depth of
the expansion is mixed and is varied across nations and regions. The
big challenge in the advanced economies is how to ensure that the
financial systems are strengthened to withstand future shocks. There
are some similarities and significant differences between the
approaches being adopted in repositioning the banking systems”.

He
however said that Sub- Saharan Africa is now estimated to grow by 4.75
per cent in 2010 compared to two per cent in 2009. 2011 is even looking
brighter with IMF estimates now being put at 5.75 per cent, adding that
oil exporters and middle income countries fared much worse than others.

According
to him, in Nigeria, the GDP growth is showing signs of resilience and
sustained growth even though there seems to be a disconnect between
data and the level of economic activity, especially jobs. “The
unravelling of the banking sector problem and pro-cyclical therapy
helped stifle any hope of early recovery” he said.

By providing critical financing to a broad array of countries over
the last two years, the IMF has played its part as a central pillar in
the global financial safety net. But the crisis has shown that to serve
as a truly dependable global lender of last resort, the Fund will need
adequate resources.

Nigeria is among
the African countries to access the five-million-dollar grant to
support sanitation and hygiene activities in their countries, a source
from the National Task Group on Sanitation (NTGS) has said.

The Water Supply
and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) based in Geneva had raised
$60 million to promote hygiene, raise awareness, as well as create
demand for sanitation activities in developing countries.

Support for sanitation

According to the
News Agency of Nigeria, a source at the WSSCC confirmed that the grant
was to support sanitation activities for a period of five years. The
visit of the programme manager of Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) of WSSC,
Barry Jackson, to Nigeria early this year was to ascertain the
country’s readiness to access the fund. The source explained that the
purpose of GSF was to support national effort to help larger number of
poor people to acquire basic sanitation and adopt best hygiene
practices.

“The fund only
operates in countries where it has the explicit approval and welcome of
the national government. It works by pooling financial contribution
from donor government and other sources in a global trust fund and then
distributes funds in selected countries through an executing agency of
the NTGS which will manage the process,” he said.

According to him,
Nigeria is making progress in accessing the fund as it has just
completed a sectoral review and sanitation gap analysis, done by an
independent consultant. He said Nigeria had moved to a process of
developing the country proposal to accessing the fund, adding that two
consultants had been contacted to develop it.

Hope

“The two
consultants are Yemi Adeleye and Comfort Olayiwole, and they have
started working, hopefully we should be able to access the fund by the
end of the year, if there is no delay. The grant will be used to
support the implementation of national water and sanitation policy,
organising roundtable conferences and media charts.

A mid-term review
will be done to evaluate the success of the programme. We expect that
the fund will be used for the promotion, development of sanitation and
hygiene work, on the software components. Rather than paying for the
construction of toilets, it is better for households to be motivated to
construct their toilets,” added the source.

Meanwhile, four countries in Africa and three from Asia are to
benefit in the first round while Nigeria tops the list of second round
beneficiaries.

Seidu Mohammed, the Director-General, National Space Research and Development Agency, NASRDA, has announced that the NigeriaSat-2 satellite will be launched officially on 29 October.

Mr. Mohammed disclosed this yesterday in Abuja at the official opening of a one-day workshop on the application of high resolution Satellite Imageries and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Imageries organised by NASRDA, in collaboration with INFOTERRA of Germany.

The new satellite, according to him, is an improvement on NigeriaSat-1 launched in September, 2003, and it has a 2.5m resolution panchromatic (very high) resolution, 5m multispectral high resolution, and 32m multispectral (medium) resolution.

The NASRDA boss explained that the launch of the new satellite will further enhance the capability of NASRDA in the delivery of qualitative space technology applications in Nigeria for sustainable development.

According to him, NASRDA has been able to deliver in various areas in the provision of food security, telecommunications, information, among others, as well as in the provision of relevant data, services, consultancy, and training to various institutions both at the federal, state, and local levels including government research institutions and parastatals, in a bid to promote national development.

Increase capacity

Mr. Mohammed added that the successful launch of NigeriaSat-2 will increase the nation’s capability for acquisition and utilisation of high resolution imageries; and it will also place Nigeria in a strategic position, in its quest towards technological development in Africa. This, he said, will not only give the nation an edge over other African countries; it also means that Nigeria has moved a notch higher in realising a major technological, economic, and social development infrastructure.

The Director General opined that the Synthetic Aperture Radar workshop is not only timely, but also preparatory to the utilisation of NigeriaSat-2 imageries in space technology applications.

He therefore, urged the participants to seize this opportunity to gain relevant knowledge and also train others, emphasising that the workshop is a train-the-trainer initiative, which will be of immense benefits to the participants, most especially when they begin to utilise imageries from NigeriaSat-2.

Marco Weber, the Director of INFOTERRA, in his remarks, said Nigeria will join five other countries in the application of SAR sensor; and that INFOTERRA will give the Agency the relevant support in this area.

In
bid to canvass for global knowledge in Nigeria, experts in the
Information and Communication Technology sector (ICT) have said that
the only solution is through electronic knowledge (e-knowledge).

In
an interview on Monday, Chris Uwaje, the president of Institute of
Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) and also the author of the
book E-Knowledge – Time is Running Out, said that in order for the
country to meet up with the global standard in all aspect of human
life, e-knowledge is a must.

“The
speed and passion at which data, information and images are being
conceptualized, generated, contextualized, processed, transmitted,
retrieved and manipulated through the application and use of
Information Technology (IT) infrastructure has greatly transformed and
continues to influence all known aspects of human life.

“These
complex digital transformation processes will, without doubt,
ultimately lead us to the global knowledge Olympiad Arena. We must
engage it consciously to ensure national survivability via
e-knowledge,” said Mr Uwaje.

Meeting global competition

Mr
Uwaje explained that e-knowledge in Nigeria is in line to meet up with
the concept of preserving knowledge and meeting global competition.

“E-knowledge
is based on the philosophy and concept of ensuring the consistency of
preserving ‘Inter-Generational Knowledge’ (IGK) base, as a model for
sustainable nation building and global competitiveness.

“Yes,
it is time. Nigeria harbours a colossal amount of traditional knowledge
of human-common-sense and it’s time to migrate them into the global
e-knowledge domain. This effort translates into several ‘change maker’
domain activities and emergence of new economy roadmap – a platform
populated by innovation and creative development champions,” he said.

Challenges in Nigeria

The expert, however, added that certain challenges have hindered the growth of e-knowledge in the country.

“The
core challenges are ignorance in and lack of promotion of science and
technology. This is followed by lack of political will of citizens and
leaders to engage the frontiers of IT. Finally, it also amounts to the
fear of technology or technophobia phenomenon, and misconception of
technology with the product of technology.

“In
the 21st century service-oriented economy, the role of a nation’s
policy-makers has grown, as the basis of competition has shifted more
and more to the creation and assimilation of knowledge.”.

Mr Uwaje noted that the challenges affecting IT growth in Nigeria
could be attributed to no appropriate policy on the sector and no
promotions guiding local content, as this has led to abuse of ICT
applications on all levels.

Thousands of job
opportunities are expected to be generated during and after the
construction of a $100 million (N15 billion) shopping mall in Ikeja
area of Lagos, some investment companies have said.

Actis, a private
equity investor in emerging markets, and its project partners, Paragon
Holdings and RMB Investments & Advisory (RMBIA), made this promise
on Monday as they marked the start of the project construction.

Michael Ejekam,
Actis Director, West Africa, said the Ikeja City Mall project will
boost the supply chain both locally and nationally, and subsequently
generate direct and indirect job opportunities.

Mr. Ejekam said,
“The Mall heralds the beginning of a retail and leisure revolution in
West Africa. There are 3.9 million potential customers within an 8km
radius of the site, but in addition to the local impact. We expect the
Ikeja City Mall to become a hub for visitors from across the region,
and further afield.”

Afolabi Toyo,
Executive Director of Paragon Holdings, said the mall will bring social
and economic development to Ikeja: “There will be significant
employment opportunities during the construction and operation phases,
and we look forward to bringing this world class real estate project to
fruition.”

State support

Babatunde Raji
Fashola, the executive governor of Lagos State, who was represented at
the event by Ganiyu Abiodun Johnson, Special Adviser on Works and
Infrastructure, said, “The Ikeja City Mall is a landmark project for
Lagos. It will bring shops and services to the local community and
bring significant job opportunities. Projects such as this will help us
secure a better future for the citizens of Lagos.

“This is the second
project of its kind which Actis has led in Lagos and I commend Actis
and Paragon for the vision and drive they have shown in getting this
development off the ground. I am honoured to oversee the official start
of construction,” he said.

Shareholdings

Actis is the 60
percent majority owner, while Paragon Holdings and RMBIA each hold 20
percent equity in the project. The project is financed by a mixture of
debt and equity, with a debt facility of $48.6 million (N7.290 billion)
secured from Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, and Standard Bank of South Africa
Limited.

Actis said the mall
will be an international standard leisure and shopping centre with
restaurants, a cinema, and retail outlets designed to service the Lagos
mainland and return Ikeja to its status as the traditional retail hub
of the city.

The project will
initially develop 28,500 square metres of leisure and retail shopping
space. Anchor tenants already secured include Shoprite and Silverbird.
A large portion of the available space has already been let out;
however, limited space remains for high quality tenants. Construction
at the mall is due to be completed by the end of 2011.

Ngozi Edozien,
Chief Executive at Actis, West Africa, said the Ikeja Mall builds on
the success of Actis’ pioneering Palms Mall in Lekki, as well as
Junction Mall in Nairobi, and Accra Mall in Ghana.

Ms. Edozien said
the company is grateful to the Lagos State government for showing great
leadership and vision in its support for the project.

Driving the 2010 Volkswagen Passat is riding in comfort and also taming an aggressive machine via its powerful car steering.

The sleek car has a classy look and a body made of
high quality materials. The car comes available in the mid-size Sedan
type and wagon version. The wagon version comes with standard
requirements from the sedan type and added with chrome roof rails. Both
body styles come in Komfort trim only.

The car comes in vibrant colours of deep black, candy
white, reflex silver metallic, white gold metallic, mocha anthracite
and island grey metallic. The car steps on a standard 17-inch alloy
wheels and also 18-inch alloy wheels which come optional. The 2010
Passat comes with an upscale in interior as compared to all initial
models of the car. The fit and finish is superb and can also be tipped
as the finest among other models of the Passat. It has a powerful
multifunctional steering wheel with buttons which control lots of
operations.

Interior

Inside the car is mounted an eight-speaker sound
system with an in-dash Six-CD-changer, an auxiliary audio jack, and
satellite radio. It also comes with an iPod adaptor and interface,
Bluetooth, hard drive based touch screen navigation system with USB
port, and 20GB hard disk size for storing music.

The seats are designed with leatherette vinyl
upholstery. It also has are a sunroof, foglights, power driver seat and
heated front seats.

Under the hood

The powerful 2010 Volkswagen Passat comes as a front
wheel drive and is powered with a 2.0 litre turbocharged four-cylinder
engine. The engine has the rate of releasing up to 200 horsepower and
207 pound-feet of torque speed.

The engine has been integrated with a responsive DSG,
six speed dual-clutch automated manual transmission which stands as
first in the family sedan segment. The manual transmission has got
traits of quick and smooth shifts, which make riding in the car
enjoyable. The turbocharged engine has got good fuel economy.

Safety

Safety is paramount with the 2010 Volkswagen Passat.
It comes loaded with whole lots of safety features like antilock disc
brakes, front- seat side airbags and full-length head curtain air bags.

Others are anti-whiplash, stability control, front head restraints and rear seat airbags which come optional.

Price

The 2010 Volkswagen Passat is priced between $27,195 to $28,755.

Egypt’s net foreign reserves were $35.1 billion at the end of May, up from $34.65 billion a month before, and back above a previous peak in October 2008 after which reserves fell in the wake of the world financial crisis.

The May number carried by the Central Bank of Egypt’s web site confirmed the figure earlier reported by a newspaper. Reserves had previously peaked in October 2008 at $35.03 billion. They slid to as low as $31.19 billion in April 2009 before starting a steady recovery since then.

Tunisia plans to
raise its annual grain production to 2.7 million tonnes by 2014 from an
average of about 1.8 million tonnes now, Agriculture Minister
Abdessalem Mansour said.

The nation imports about 2.5 million tonnes of grain each year to make up for a shortfall in domestic production.

“Tunisia aims to increase the rate of grain production gradually to
27 million quintals (2.7 million tonnes) by 2014,” the TAP official
news agency quoted the minister as saying on Sunday. Mr. Mansour also
stated that the plan was to increase production by reducing wastage of
grain during transportation. He did not give a forecast for this year’s
grain harvest.

Mauritius’ annual
average inflation rate was unchanged at 1.8 percent in May from a month
earlier, official data showed on Monday.

“The headline
inflation rate for the twelve months ending May works out to 1.8
percent compared to 7.4 percent for the twelve months ending May 2009,”
the Central Statistics Office said in a statement.

The CSO said on a monthly basis, prices of food and non alcoholic
beverages dipped by 0.2 percent compared with April, while transport
costs were down by 1.6 percent. The price drops were balanced by rising
costs of restaurants and hotels, miscellaneous goods and services and
alcoholic beverages and tobacco.