Nig. Stock Exchange To Hit $1trillion, Soon

The targeted $1trillion dollar market capitalization mark is achievable if the telecom companies, power companies and oil companies get listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

This is according to the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arunma Oteh.

Oteh who was speaking to journalists after the second quarter capital market committee meeting in Lagos, said that presently the market capitalization is at $107 billion.

She maintains that if certain factors are put in place, the $1trillion target will be achieved in no distant time.

Nordex wind power firm shutters US plant

German wind power specialist Nordex has announced plans to shut down its production facility in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Overcapacity and cuts in government tax benefits have rendered the US operation unprofitable.

Weak demand in the US market and uncertainty about the commercial conditions for wind power in the country has forced Nordex to cease production at its Jonesboro facility, the German wind power firm announced in a statement Friday.

Existing orders would still be processed over the course of the next few months, Nordex announced, adding that the plant closure would make about 40 production workers redundant, though employees at the distribution, services and project development units would retain their jobs.

Describing the announcement as a sad day for Nordex USA, division chief Ralf Sigrist said that the decision had been unavoidable because of low capacity utilization in the factory.

In addition, uncertainty about whether the US administration would continue a policy of tax breaks for wind power had led to an incalculable situation, he said.

Nordex inaugurated the factory in 2010. US production, according to the firm, would now be repatriated to a plant in Rostock, Germany.

 According to a major restructuring program announced earlier this month, Nordex planned to refocus activities on Germany, Scandinavia, Turkey and South Africa. Production would also be ceased in China because of low-cost competition from Asian manufacturers.

EU confident about gas deliveries even without Nabucco

European Commission has announced that it is unworried about the Nabucco pipeline project not being chosen to deliver gas to the bloc. Brussels argued the rival TAP consortium would serve the purpose just as well.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that he was not worried about future natural gas supplies to the EU.

His comment came two days after a consortium of developers of a huge gas field in Azerbaijan chose the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) for deliveries to Europe instead of the Nabucco project long supported politically by the EU executive.

TAP comprises Norway's Statoil, Axpo of Switzerland and the German utility company E.ON. The pipeline will run 800 kilometers (500 miles) across northern Greece and into southern Albania before traveling under sea to Italy.

Barroso said the TAP project also served the EU's primary objective of becoming less dependent on Russian supplies.

German retail sales surge amid brighter consumer mood

Retail sales in Germany strongly rebounded in May, ending three months of slumping, official figures have shown. Germans are returning to shops motivated by rising incomes and reducing fears for their jobs.

Retail shops in Europe's biggest economy sold 0.8 percent more in May compared with the previous month of April, the latest figures released by the German Federal Statistics Office, Destatis, showed on Friday.

The rise surprised economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires who had forecast a drop by 0.3 percent on the back of declining retail sales in the previous three months.

Year-on-year, the May figure, which is adjusted for inflation, climbed 0.4 percent as Germans increased spending on food, beverages and tobacco, Destatis data showed. Nonfood supplies, however, slipped over the past 12 months.

Describing the sector as on course, the retail lobby group HDE reported that it expected an overall rise in sales of 1 percent this year amid further brightening consumer sentiment and a robust labor market in Germany.

On Thursday, unemployment figures for June showed the jobless rate in Germany falling further as 12,000 people more had found jobs. Moreover, the GfK consumer confidence index for July surged to its highest level in six years.

BlackBerry maker RIM disappoints markets

Canadian phone maker RIM has logged huge losses in its first fiscal quarter as new models hit the market too late. Sales figures didn't meet analysts’ expectations, sending premarket shares down.

Shares of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) took a tumble in premarket trading on Friday, dropping by almost 20 percent.

The stock market reacted to the company's poor performance in the first quarter ending at the beginning of June. RIM announced it lost $84 million (64 million euros) in the three months under revision on revenue of $3.1 billion.

The Canadians said they sold a total of 6.8 million phones versus 7.8 million units year-on-year. But the BlackBerry maker failed to break out how many of its new phones were bought by customers worldwide.

TCN blames current power shedding on vandals

General Manager (Public Affairs) of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, Dave Ifabiyi, has blamed the current load shedding being experienced in the country on the activities of vandals on two major gas pipelines.

He further revealed that the disruption, which specifically affected Rivers State Independent Power Station, would soon be corrected.

Ifabiyi explained that the vandalised gas pipelines take supply from different plants, saying one took supply from the Okoloma gas plant while the other took supply from Escravos.

He said the loss occurred when NGC could not move gas to Afam IV and VI generation plants as well as the Independent Power Plant in Rivers State, adding that the second vandalised gas pipeline from Escravos to Warri was responsible for the cutback of 1,005 megawatts in power generation from Egbin station.


He revealed that Olorunsogo, Omotosho and Geregu power generating plants were also affected by the power drop.

The country’s power generation capacity recently hit 6,000 megawatts, according to the Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo. He, however, projected a generation of between 10,000 MW and 20,000MW in 2014 and 2016 respectively for the country.