The Nation Newspaper

Category: Business

  • Aviation road show: A postscript

    To cynics, the aviation road show was unnecessary. But they forget one thing; a drastic problem requires a drastic solution. The roadshow was necessary at that point in time because of the June 3 Dana plane crash in which 153 persons died. The road show was meant to address the negative impact of the crash and not  a jamboree as insinuated by critics.

    With the Senate holding a public hearing on the crash, the ripple effect of that action on the industry could best be imagined. The insurance premium paid on haul by local operators went up astronomically and lease fees also went up by over 100 per cent as many aircraft leasing organisations began to shun the Nigerian market because of the perceived unhealthy climate.

    Funding from international agencies equally became threatened and the resultant impact was over 60 per cent drop in local and regional capacity. The development also led to over 25 per cent increase in fares. An hour flight which hitherto cost between N22,000 and N28,000 now oscillates between N30,000 and N32,000 on economy class.

    First Nation, Chanchangi, and Air Nigeria went on voluntary grounding; Aero and IRS are running skeletal services. Dana’s operating has just been restored, but its fate remains unknown with the flying public.

    Only Arik Air is operating at full capacity and even with increased flight schedules, the situation at our airports remains chaotic. As a minister desirous to make an impact, Princess Stella Odua thought of and came up with the investment road show so as to re-brand the industry to attract local and foreign investors. The local leg  of the road show was held in June, in Abuja.

    The investment basket tagged: ‘Aerotropolis’, is designed to attract investments into the industry, airport infrastructure, aircraft maintenance and other ancillary sectors  like hotels and catering.

    After the Abuja meeting, it was time to move to the international market. This informed the visit of the minister and her heads of parastatals to China, Canada and the United States (US). Though the trip was widely criticised, investigations showed that the initiative may just be the needed tonic to transform the ailing industry.

    According to reports, The  Boeing Corporation which products account for over 80 per cent of the available passenger fleet in the country and Bombardier signified interest in helping to overhaul the existing domestic fleet through a renewal plan that would also seek to set up solid aircraft repair and maintenance organisations (AMOs) in the country.

    Boeing, an American based manufacturer of long range jumbo airplanes, indicated eight key areas it would participate in the ministry’s novel project, ‘Aerotopolis’ . Some of the areas are: maintenance centre, fleet renewal for local  airline operators, and training. Its Director of Sales, Lawrence Pollivier, who led the Boeing team, promised that his organisation would also help to carry out technical assessment of all Boeing air planes operating in the country and equally assist in developing aviation data base for the country .

    Bombardier, a medium range Canada-based aircraft builder, will also embark on AMO and aircraft acquisition programme to help Nigerian airlines acquire brand new bombardier aeroplanes. Its Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Helene V. Gagonon , said the company was ready to invest in the country as soon as all the necessary arrangements were put in place for the project’s take off .

    The minister’s delegation also secured the commitment of a leading international Bank, Citibank, to provide fund for companies that would participate in the Aerotropolis,  in addition to providing financial advice for the project.

    Its head of global investments, Mr Ray McGuire, said the bank would be involved in various phases of the aerotropolis project, adding: ,”aerotropolis offers huge opportunities for major infrastructural development second to none in the sub-continent around the airport community”.

    In China, the team had fruitful meetings with investors. Prominent among organisations willing to invest in the project are the China State Construction  Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) and Huawei Technologies .

    The CSCEC ‘s Vice President, Yu Zhende said Nigeria must develop its aviation to position it as a major hub on the continent. He spoke of his company’s readiness to partner with the country in the aerotopolis project, adding that as soon as all necessary agreements that would guarantee the investments were formalised,  his company would move in because funding would not be a problem.

    On its part, Huawei presented a proposal for information technology (IT) infrastructure for airport terminals across the country. It was a joint proposal with its partners, SITA, a leading IT solutions provider in the industry.In time, and the results of the road show will  manifest and end all talks about its significance.

  • Furniture firm targets upscale market

    Consumer’s furniture company, Aframero Limited, exhibited some of its product recently at the just-concluded furtex international furniture, home textiles and home suppliers trade fair held in Lagos, last week.

    Aframero Limited not only supplies premium quality building and woodworking materials to the construction and furniture sector, it also provides advisory services.

    Its Managing Director, Mrs. Yetunde Oghomienor said the company was birthed to fill the gap in high quality interior finishing materials at affordable prices. She said the company’s main products include wood composite panels like medium density fibrewood, and Formica brand counter tops.

    In addition, she said their products carry the widest range of colours, finishes, and sizes.
    According to her, Aframero’s kitchen accessories include magic corner, pantry unit, pullout basket and other items that makes a kitchen beautiful and making working easier and more pleasurable.

    The company’s general manager Mr. clement Sampson describe Aframero limited as a one stop shop were you get all your furniture materials and accessories.

    On the target market she revealed that the product is targeted at professionals, specifiers in the building sectors, architects, builders, furniture manufacturers are their major target.

  • NAMA completes TRACON

    The total radio coverage of Nigeria (TRACON)on VHF has been completed, Managing Director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Mazi Nnamdi Udoh has said.

    He said the Kano phase of the VHF coverage, which has been delayed for sometime, has just been completed to complement the Lagos phase, which had earlier been completed and put into operation.

    ‘’We now have seamless airspace and in addition to this, we are operating area radar control as from next week (this week).”If you are taking off from Lagos, you don’t have to change your squak (code used by a pilot to communicate with the air traffic controller) to Port Harcourt, Abuja or Kano.

    The controller will transfer you seamlessly to the next radar and maintain the same squak to land. Prior to this, we were having procedural aerial control but now, we are going to use surveillance aerial control,” he said.

    He said with the completion of TRACON, the country is strategically positioned to conquer the African airspace.

    “If you are looking at Cameroun, Togo, Niger, Chad, you will see that we are strategically positioned to embrace that section of the airspace. And all we need is to have some kind of wide aerial multi-lateration system to link up the other countries. All we need is one system and a switch and all the systems in Africa will talk to one another.

    “You don’t really have to physically see the infrastructure. It’s like roaming a phone; something is there that is making you connect anywhere you go. It is doable; it can be achieved overtime. The major thing, like the Director General of NCAA, Dr Demuren said was the political will and the support of AU and ICAO and other relevant bodies,” he said.

    He noted that the European airspace could not be compared with that of Africa because, ‘’we cannot compare Africa with Europe, which has a smaller airspace. Seamless Africa airspace is something that is do-able. It is something we can achieve over time’’.

    On the manpower need of NAMA to keep the system working, Engineer Udoh said: ‘’ Nobody keeps manpower in store. We are training and re-training retired people. We are using them to create succession plans because nobody ever thought technology will go the way it is today. So, we are going to continuously recruit and retrain’’.

  • Medview opts for scheduled flights

    the number of indigenous carriers will soon increase with the coming of Medview Airline.

    Medview is famous for the yearly flight operations to Saudi Arabia for Muslim pilgrims.

    Sources close to the airline said, over at the weekend that one of the aircraft to be used for the flight operations, a Boeing 737-400 is, expected to arrive in the country from Buckarest, Romania. The second aircraft will come on later.

    The source said the inspection unit of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had gone to Romania to inspect the aircraft, which was approved for operations by the regulatory .

    It was learnt that the airline hopes to fly to at least four routes – Lagos-Abuja, Abuja-Port Harcourt, Maiduguri-Yola and Lagos -Port Harcourt.

    Last week, the Managing Director of Medview Alhaji Munir Bankole and other management team were at the Murtala Mohammed Airport Two (MMA2) inspecting the vacant offices within the complex, ahead of commencement of operations.

    Bankole in an interview said the team was at the complex to inspect offices that would be used for its daily operations.

    He said: “As you can see, we are here to inspect the offices for the commencement of our daily flight operations to some airports in the next couple of weeks. We have undergone the necessary inspections as stipulated by NCAA, but I can’t tell you categorically when we will start, but we are starting very soon.”

    Bankole explained that one of the Unique Selling Proportions of the airline would be on time departure and adherence to the safety rules of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and NCAA.

  • Profit taking halts equities’ rally

    THE Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) opened this week on a negative note as investors turned to take profit from stocks that have benefited from the consistent capital gains in the last 11 days.

    Notwithstanding the downturn, Nestle Nigeria Plc established a new price record at N577.50. This is the highest in the stock’s and Exchange’s history.
    The benchmark index at NSE, the All-Share-Index (ASI) shed 167.23 absolute points, representing 0.67 per cent depreciation, to close at 24,671.47 points. Similarly, market capita-lisation dropped N53 billion to close at N7.854 trillion.

    The downturn was significantly impacted by losses recorded by several and large capitalised stocks including Dangote Cement, Cadbury, First Bank, Dangote Sugar, Stanbic-IBTC, Zenith Bank, Oando and UBA.

    Specifically, a total of 50 equities recorded price change with 23 appreciating while the remaining 27 reduced in value. Cadbury led the losers’ table with a drop of N1.10 to close at N20.90 followed by UTC with a drop of N0.03 to close at N0.57. Also on the table were Wapic, Fort Oil, Morison, UBA, Dangote Sugar, Paint Company, Eterna Oil and ETI.

    On the gainers’ table, Nestle led the list with an appreciation of N27.50 to close at N577.50 followed by Bagco with a gain of N0.09 to close at N1.89. Also on the list were Bagco, Berger paint, Roads, Julius Berger, International Breweries, NCR, Continental Insurance, Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) and NACON.

    In all, investors traded 266.657 million shares worth N2.157 billion in 4, 432 deals. The Financial Services sector was the most sought after with 199.379 million shares worth N1.285 billion across 2, 458 deals.

    This was followed by the Consumer Goods with 21.678 million shares worth N591.461 million in 1,001 deals. Others with significant volume were Conglomerates with 15.734 million shares, Industrial Goods with 7.789 million shares, Construction/Real Estate with 7.737 million shares and Services with 6.503 million shares.

  • CIS postpones workshop

    The maiden edition of the annual national workshop of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) originally scheduled to hold on September 13, 2012 in Abuja has been shifted to the first week in November.

    Chairman, CIS’s National Workshop Committee, Mr. Albert Okumagba, said the shift would enable CIS to broaden the participation in the workshop and reach out to more groups.

    “We were pleasantly surprised by the level and the quality of responses that trailed the various announcements on the September workshop. Many other focused groups we had excluded also called to express surprise that they were not part of the plan”, Okumagba said.

    He noted that with the postponement, the CIS would be able to reach out to all the groups that were not in the plans before.

    The annual workshop as designed by CIS is meant to generate quality input which it intends to make available to the Federal Government in designing the appropriate policies for the country.

  • Banknotes, coins ‘ll always be relevant, says Lemo

    Although e-payment is becoming more popular in Africa, banknotes and coins will always be relevant and useful, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Deputy Governor, Tunde Lemo has said.

    Speaking yesterday at the Association of African Banknotes and Security Documents Printers (AABSDP) conference in Lagos, he said the cash-less policy of the apex bank is on course. He said banknotes and coins will always be useful in consummating transactions.

    Lemo said that the proposed N5, 000 note will reduce cost of banking operations, adding that Africa must embrace change and new technologies in printing of bank notes and minting of coins to keep counterfeiters on check.

    “Yes, electronic banking is where to go because of the increase in volume of commercial activities in the last 10 years, but then cash will not go away. While others will be growing, the volume of cash in the system will remain the same. So when they castigate us that we are speaking from both sides of the mouth by talking cash-less and introducing a higher denomination, our response is that we must be more efficient with the use of cash because cash will not go away. So we are attacking efficiency from both ends and the two are not contradictory, rather they are complementary,” he said.

    Lemo disclosed said that the restructuring of Nigeria’s currency is based on CBN’s constitutional roles, which allow it to print new notes from time to time.
    He said that the apex bank has assisted in ensuring that counterfeit-proof notes are printed and circulated within the country.

    According to him, given the apex bank’s record in the market and the things it had done over the past 20 years, there is need for it to be trusted.
    He said the apex bank is ensuring that features it puts in the currency are so expensive that it will be difficult for counterfeiting to thrive.

    “We believe that the coins are very important. There is no society that operates only on banknotes. People say they can’t carry coins, but the moment they go to other countries, they give them coins and they put them in their pocket. The CBN is charged with the responsibility of issuing and managing the legal tender currency in Nigeria,” he said.

    Besides, he said that global best practice demands that countries restructure their currencies every five to eight years to be ahead of counterfeiters.

    He said that the existing policy actually is that if one must carry high volume of cash, then he must pay the associated charges with the carriage of high volume of cash. Besides, he said that the charges of electronic banking will continue to go down. He said that banks are now reducing cost of electronic banking as they continue to have more transactions along that path.

    “Suppose you need to print maybe N1 million N100 notes, you can actually reduce cost by printing them in N5, 000 and of course the differential is very minimal. That is basically what we are saying. At the high end, the volume of N1000 that we are using today, gives a compelling reason why some of it should be denominated in N5, 000 so as to reduce cost,” he said.

    He said the policy will not cause inflation because the apex bank is not increasing volume of money supply. “We are only redistributing the percentages that will be in different denomination, so it will not increase inflation,” he said.

    “We want Nigerians to carry less cash. We cannot say we don’t want Nigerians to carry cash because people carry cash all over the world and they will continue to carry cash,” he said.

  • Skye Bank Wins Best card Innovation Award

    Skye Bank Plc at the weekend won the “best card innovation Bank” award in the nation’s financial services industry at the 2012 ‘Nigeria Telecomms Awards’.
    In a statement, the lender said the award confirmed its leading role in electronic payments business.

    The awards organisers, Nigeria Telecomms Awards Group, said the bank won the award because of the overwhelming industry consensus and independent research of its various assessment teams, which acknowledged the bank’s creativity in payments cards.

    Specifically, the awards organisers said the bank won the award because of its creative ingenuity in the creation of the first Pound Sterling denomination Mastercard and for being the first bank to issue a Mastercard Verve card.

    In addition, the group said Skye Bank was the first to issue a Visa co-branded card for online transactions, which it described as a commendable premise on which the card business has built further creativity.

    Skye Bank had received popular endorsement in this regard as over 70 per cent of the respondents recommended the bank for the award over and above the other banks nominated for the award.

    Skye Bank had recently won the “best card issuing efficiency award” at the ACI Payments Worldwide’s ‘African Payments Awards’ held in Lagos where banks and other providers of cards and electronic payments systems converged.

    ACI Worldwide , a worldwide leader in payments system solutions to banks, processors and retailers around the world, has a reputation built on the success of its products that have consistently provided stability, scalability and reliability.

     Also recently, the bank won Intermarc’s best ‘card activation award’ at the recent Card Expo organised by Intermarc Nigeria Limited in Lagos where operators in electronic payments and card business were recognised and honoured.

  • CIBN lauds Unity Bank

    The Chartered Institute of Bankers of (CIBN) has commended Unity Bank for collaborating with it in promoting professionalism in the industry.
    The President and chairman of Council of CIBN, Segun Aina disclosed this when he led his members on a courtesy call to the bank in Abuja.

    Aina, who said the institute regards the bank as part of the family, assured his council’s support at all times. He revealed that the institute is putting in place professional programs aimed at enhancing quality in the industry.

    In a statement, he said that the Institute has, in the last one year, undertaken trips to some European and Asian countries to collaborate with them in financial talent enhancement, while 16 new certifications in various banking operations have been incorporated into the competency program.

    Aina also urged management of the bank to continue to encourage staff to write the CIBN examination and expressed appreciation with the growing number of active participants in the CIBN activities from the Bank.

    In his response, the Managing Director of Unity Bank Plc Ado Wanka has assured the CIBN delegation that the Bank will take advantage of the institute’s competency framework program to develop its human capital and charged the Institute to remain responsive to make the industry more professional.

    He explained to the delegation the historical development of the bank that started through a very difficult process in culture integration, systems and process coupled with capital problem but added that “it is with pride that I can tell you today we have a Bank that is clean”. He said the bank should have any excuse for not being an active member of CIBN reassured that Unity Bank shall remain an active player in the institute’s development because of its dynamic programs.

  • Lift ban on rice, importers urge govt

    THE Federal Government has been urged to lift the ban on rice import through land borders in the interest of the masses.

    Spokesman of rice importers Mr Gbolahan Adetona described rice as one of the nation’s staples. He urged President Goodluck Jonathan to allow the group import the commodity through land borders this year.

    Adetona said the landing cost of rice through the seaports was expensive compared to what obtains in neighbouring countries.

    Another member of the group, Mrs Nosirat Odubela, said importers pay 20 per cent Customs duty and a 20 per cent levy, in compliance with government’s directive.

    The importers refuted claims that they were shortchanging the government by evading duty, saying they were ready to pay.

    “It is bad for those that have government’s ears to tag us that are doing legitimate business through the approved land borders and paying the necessary duty to Customs as smugglers. We are not smugglers, but importers and rice merchants.

    “We prefer to import through the neighbouring ports because we cannot compete with the local importers that use billions of naira to import the commodity.

    “Those who engage in smuggling are still in business.They have their routes and know how they convey their rice to the market,” Odubela said.

    Investigation by The Nation revealed that rice import through land borders has stopped and smuggling has reduced because of Customs surveillance.

    Some importers in Seme said the price of rice went up during the yuletide because of the importers’ interest.