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Monday 26th of August 2019 |
26-AUG-2019 :: China Strikes at Trump Africa |
''It’s Friday evening in Asia; it’s the weekend. The timing of this news - smack toward the open in America'' tweeted David ingles. The Precise timing of the news that China planned retaliatory tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. goods was deliberate and designed to roil the US markets. China pronounced that it had reinstated tariffs on cars and car parts originating in the US and imposed an Extra 5% Tariff On Soy Beans and a 5% Tariff On U.S. Crude Oil Imports From Sept. 1. The Chinese have less to work with; They export less than they import which is the crux of the matter for Trump. What is also clear is that China has been very precise and taking aim at the Farm and Oil Economy in particular is designed to strike at Trump's soft underbelly.
Hu Xijin 胡锡进 who occupies a unique position in China's messaging machine and curates China inc's position in real time tweeted
China has 'lost' the US already: all-round high tariffs, Huawei ban, political hostility, Hong Kong, Taiwan... We're facing a completely different United States. We have nothing more to lose, while the US is just starting to lose China. @HuXijin_GT
Of course, the level of Chinese retaliation was the message and of the ilk of the Shoe thrower in Iraq all those years ago.
@IvanTheK put it pithily and tweeted
''CHINA TO THE CHOSEN ONE: GFY''
The Chinese Renminbi has now depreciated 10% over 12 months and is being used as a shock absorber and a very precise first responder to Trump.
President Trump who had said previously ‘trade wars are good, and easy to win.’ and only on Wednesday said
“I am the chosen one. Somebody had to do it, I’m taking on China on trade. And you know what? We’re winning.”
Of course "I am the chosen one'' became a Meme in the blink of an eye and played to Trump's evangelical base which pays a great deal of attention to the Book of Revelations;
I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
President Trump responded overnight
Trump said existing 25% tariffs on some $250 billion in imports from #China would rise to 30% on Oct. 1, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China
Additionally, the remaining 300 BILLION DOLLARS of goods and products from China, that was being taxed from September 1st at 10%, will now be taxed at 15%. Thank you for your attention to this matter! tweeted @realDonaldTrump
Furthermore, President Trump threatened to use emergency authority to ''order'' US businesses to cut ties in China. Trump called the Federal Reserve Chairman Powell an Enemy bigger than Xi.
Trump's newly minted Defence Minister Esper told Fox that the testing of previously banned ground-launched intermediate-range missile and releasing the video of it meant to "deter Chinese bad behavior"
This is now a rupture plain and simple. Safe Havens which were already in nose-bleed Territory [Gold, Yen, CHF, Sovereign Bonds] and priced for Armageddon or an Apocalypse Now rallied on the news. The Stock Markets fell sharply. The overarching Question Investors need to ask themselves is this
Is this a permanent rupture? Or is this a crazy off the charts escalation just before a Deal? The Markets pirouette on the answer to this question.
The President of the African Development Bank spoke to the negative feedback loop Phenomenon and told Reuters
The U.S.-China trade war and uncertainty over Brexit pose risks to Africa’s economic prospects that are “increasing by the day” “You have Brexit, you also have the recent challenges between Pakistan and India that have flared off there, plus you have the trade war between the United States and China. All these things can combine to slow global growth, with implications for African countries.” “I think the trade war has significantly impacted economic growth prospects in China and therefore import demand from China has fallen significantly and so demand for products and raw materials from Africa will only fall even further,” he said. “It will also have another effect with regard to China’s own outward-bound investments on the continent,” he added, saying these could also affect official development assistance.
There are opportunities for Africa in this rupture and next week I will look more closely at what those opportunities might be
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The specialist is monitoring data on his mission console when a voice breaks in Africa |
The specialist is monitoring data on his mission console when a voice breaks in, “a voice that carried with it a strange and unspecifiable poignancy”. He checks in with his flight-dynamics and conceptual- paradigm officers at Colorado Command: “We have a deviate, Tomahawk.” “We copy. There’s a voice.” “We have gross oscillation here.” “There’s some interference. I have gone redundant but I’m not sure it’s helping.” “We are clearing an outframe to locate source.” “Thank you, Colorado.” “It is probably just selective noise. You are negative red on the step-function quad.” “It was a voice,” I told them. “We have just received an affirm on selective noise... We will correct, Tomahawk. In the meantime, advise you to stay redundant.” The voice, in contrast to Colorado’s metallic pidgin, is a melange of repartee, laughter, and song, with a “quality of purest, sweetest sadness”. “Somehow we are picking up signals from radio programmes of 40, 50, 60 years ago.”
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Distinct properties of the radio burst emission from the magnetar XTE J1810−197 Africa |
XTE J1810−197 was the first ever magnetar which was found to emit transient radio emission. It has recently undergone another radio and high-energy outburst. This is only the second radio outburst that has been observed from this source. We observed J1810−197 soon after its recent radio outburst at low radio frequencies using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope. We present the 650MHz flux density evolution of the source in the early phases of the outburst, and its radio spectrum down to frequencies as low as 300 MHz. The magnetar also exhibits radio emission in the form of strong, narrow bursts. We show that the bursts have a characteristic intrinsic width of the order of 0.5−0.7 ms, and discuss their properties in the context of giant pulses and giant micropulses from other pulsars. We also show that the bursts exhibit spectral structures which cannot be explained by interstellar propagation effects. These structures might indicate a phenomenological link with the repeating fast radio bursts which also show interesting, more detailed frequency structures. While the spectral structures are particularly noticeable in the early phases of the outburst, these seem to be less prominent as well as less frequent in the later phases, suggesting an evolution of the underlying cause of these spectral structures.
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When a 26-year-old American missionary set out for a lush island in the Indian Ocean last year, it was with one objective in mind: to convert the uncontacted Sentinelese tribe, who had lived for centuries in isolation @GQMagazine Africa |
After the storm finally passed, a crew of local Christians hid Chau on their 30-foot open wooden boat and struck out under darkness for the most extreme outcrop of the Andaman archipelago, on a route presumably meant to resemble that of a normal fishing expedition. As they dodged other craft, Chau recorded, “The Milky Way was above and God Himself was shielding us from the Coast Guard and Navy patrols.” The Indian government bans contact with the Sentinelese as a way of protecting them from outsiders—and outsiders from them. The Sentinelese have maintained their independence by frequently repelling foreigners from their shoreline with eight-foot-long arrows. Bioluminescent plankton illuminated fish jumping “like darting mermaids” as the boat motored more than 60 miles. Sometime before 4:30 a.m., the crew noted three bonfires on a distant beach and then anchored outside the island’s barrier reef. While resting, eyes shut but not asleep, Chau had “a vision as I’ve never had one before,” of a meteorite—possibly representing himself—streaking toward a “frightening city with jagged spires,” seemingly Sentinel Island. Then “a whitish light filled [the city] and all the frightening bits melted away.” He couldn’t help wondering in his diary: “LORD is this island Satan’s last stronghold where none have heard or even had a chance to hear Your Name?” Dawn soon revealed a hut on a white-sand beach, backed by primordial jungle. Chau off-loaded from the fishermen’s boat a kayak and two waterproof cases jammed with wilderness survival supplies. He paddled a half mile in shallow water over dead coral, and as he approached shore, he heard women “looing and chattering.” Then two dark-skinned men, wearing little, if anything, ran onto the beach, shouting in a language spoken by no one on earth besides their tribe. They clutched bows, though they hadn’t yet strung arrows onto them. From his kayak, Chau yelled in English: “My name is John. I love you, and Jesus loves you. Jesus Christ gave me authority to come to you.” Then, offering a tuna most likely caught by the fishermen on the journey to the island, Chau declared: “Here is some fish!” In response, the Sentinelese socketed bamboo arrows onto bark-fiber bowstrings. Chau panicked. He flung the gift into the bay. As the tribesmen gathered it, he turned and paddled “like I never have in my life, back to the boat.” By the time he reached safety, though, his fear was already turning to disappointment. He swore to himself that he would return later that day.
Political Reflections
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The airstrike is the first Israeli attack in Iraq since jets destroyed a nuclear reactor being built by Saddam Hussein in 1981. @thetimes Law & Politics |
Israeli jets attacked an Iranian weapons depot in Iraq in an escalation of covert strikes to counter Tehran’s growing influence in the region, US officials have said. The raid risks destabilising Iraq during a period of relative peace. The airstrike is the first Israeli attack in Iraq since jets destroyed a nuclear reactor being built by Saddam Hussein in 1981. Iranian media reported that a funeral was held the day after the attack for Abolfazl Sarabian, a Revolutionary Guard commander described as a “shrine defender”. Reports said that the base was storing medium-range missiles in refrigeration lorries. A further shipment of missiles had arrived before the attack on July 19 from across the Iranian border, 50 miles away. Nouri al-Maliki, the former Iraqi prime minister, said that the Israeli attack would elicit a strong response. Mr Maliki, who leads a Shia block in the Iraqi parliament, said yesterday that Israel was fighting a secret war in Iraq. If that policy continued, he said, Iraq would become “a battle arena that drags in multiple countries, including Iran”. “Be sure that if the confrontation between us starts, it will only end with your removal from the region once and for all,” he warned the Israelis.
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What drives migration today? The answer is neither war nor politics @FinancialTimes Law & Politics |
That we live in a populist moment is evident. The list — to some the litany — of Brexit and Donald Trump, the rise of far-right movements in Germany and France, the governments of Italy, Poland and Hungary, is all that is needed to make the case that there is a revolt afoot against a global, cosmopolitan, liberal consensus. And more than anything it is attitudes to immigration and to the resulting rapid ethnic transformation of large parts of the west that tally closest to support for populist causes. With immigration so central to the politics of the day, a number of new books are appearing on the subject. Two share a pan-European lens: Peter Gatrell’s The Unsettling of Europe: The Great Migration, 1945 to the Present and Stephen Smith’s The Scramble for Europe: Young Africa on Its Way to the Old Continent. Gatrell takes a historical view, placing what is happening now in the context of population movements which have been going on since the end of the second world war. Smith adopts a more geographical perspective, taking as his starting point the contrasting demographic conditions of Africa and Europe, the former home to ever-larger cohorts of young people, the latter greying before our eyes. These now-distant events have every right to a place in the history books, and Gatrell has done us a service in chronicling them so engagingly. But they have little or nothing to do with the German response to the 2015 Syria migrant crisis or the fact that, ONS data suggest, since the late 1990s the UK has had more immigration from beyond the British Isles in an average two-year period than it experienced from the Norman Conquest to VE Day. a demographically waning continent, facing Africa, the last great repository of population dynamism. Take for example the UK and Nigeria. According to the UN, in 1950, when still a British colony, the number of Nigerians aged under 10 was perhaps half as high again than the UK’s. Today there are nearly eight times as many under-10s in Nigeria versus the UK, despite the latter having been a land of mass immigration for the best part of two decades. By 2050, the UN estimates that the ratio will be more than 12 to one. Parallels between the ethnic transformation of the developed world and the millions uprooted in the wake of the second world war are unconvincing If migration is the driver of the populism that defines the current political scene, it is demography — specifically the radically different demographic profiles of north and south — that creates both its demand and supply. Gatrell has little sympathy for the unpopularity of mass migration across Europe and he devotes little attention to the great demographic fissures that are driving these migrations today. Downplaying the historical novelty of a phenomenon, failing to listen to those unnerved by it and insisting that only its positive side can be discussed in polite society did not work out well for proponents of ever-closer European union and it will not do in the debate about immigration either. By contrast, it is on an understanding of the underlying demography where Stephen Smith is at his best. His book is something of a misnomer. The Scramble for Europe is really about Africa, just as a book about the Scramble for Africa of the 1880s would really be about Europe. Smith locates in Africa the vast population growth that is making it the mirror image of Europe. Europe was the first continent out of the Malthusian trap of high fertility and high mortality into the demographic transition of persistently high fertility, falling mortality and exploding population size. It was Europe’s population growth that made possible its outward expansion before the first world war, when its children were populating everywhere from California to Australia. Africa is the last continent into the demographic transition. While Europe has for decades seen declining and low family sizes, long life expectancy and corresponding greying, Africa is still seeing persistently high fertility, exceptionally fast falls in infant mortality and extensions in life expectancy, all characteristics of the late-adopters of the demographic transition. As a result, population explosion in Africa has been supercharged compared with earlier adopters of modernity in Europe. If large numbers of people are a good thing, then this is a case of last-mover advantage. The pull of a rich, old Europe in need of workers on a poor young Africa in search of opportunity is immense. But Smith does not see the entry of a large number of Africans into Europe as necessarily a good thing; quite apart from transforming a continent with its own traditions and patterns of life and provoking a political backlash, it will strip Africa of its best and brightest and thereby of its own hopes of progress. Nor does he fall into the trap of considering it inevitable. Demography is indeed a great factor in history but it does not remove the abilities of peoples and nations to make decisions, albeit that those decisions must be made in a demographic context. Take, for example, the case of wealthy but ageing Singapore; it is surrounded by relatively poor Indonesians and Malaysians yet quite capable of controlling inward migration because it chooses to. In the end, at current fertility rates, Europeans are breeding themselves out of existence, some (Spaniards, Italians, Bulgarians, Estonians, Germans) in the relatively short term, others (Irish, British, French, Scandinavians) with a slightly longer time horizon. The latest UK data suggest a lowest-ever birth rate and a sinking fertility rate. Whether Europeans wish, like the Japanese, to make way for nature as they abandon villages and even suburbs, or instead to make way for other people who do wish to reproduce, is ultimately a decision of policy and practice. At the root of all of this is not the population boom in Africa or anywhere else but the ever-smaller family sizes in Europe. Whilst we should have the courage to stand up to those who wish the whole debate would go away and are too quick to throw accusations at those who believe it is healthy and necessary to discuss it, we should be equally determined to stand up to those on the far-right who speak the absurd language of “white genocide” and “replacement”. In response to the white supremacists chanting “they shall not replace us” — and indeed for predominantly white societies across Europe nervous about the ethnic change they are witnessing — we need to ask “are you prepared to reproduce yourselves?” For Europeans wanting neither a radically new ethnic complexion to their countries nor their emptying out altogether, an acceptable and effective pronatalist politics will need to be constructed. For liberals who are relaxed about immigration and ethnic change, it is now incumbent upon them to come up with ways in which a coherent society can be formed from people of different backgrounds. Just as a nationalist sentiment was required to form the warfare states of Europe over the past two hundred years, so something new will be needed in its place if the welfare states of today are to survive in anything like their current form.
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10 NOV 14 ::Ouagadougou's Signal to Sub-Sahara Africa Law & Politics |
What’s clear is that a very young, very informed and very connected African youth demographic [many characterise this as a ‘demographic dividend’] – which for Beautiful Blaise turned into a demographic terminator – is set to alter the existing equilibrium between the rulers and the subjects, and a re-balancing has begun.
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"In a multi-polar world, you need a multi-polar currency," he told @CNBC's Steve Liesman International Trade |
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said the world’s reliance on the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency is too risky and proposed a new digital currency to replace it. “In a multi-polar world, you need a multi-polar currency,” he told CNBC’s Steve Liesman at the Federal Reserve’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Carney said a new digital currency based on a global basket of goods would provide equilibrium to a system where some countries have moved to zero or negative interest rates, while others, including the U.S., remain positive. “The question is how do you get there,” he said. “You don’t just jump to something new over night.”
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Sudan PM Says Country Needs $8 Billion in Aid: @AlArabiya_Eng @markets Africa |
Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said the country requires $8 billion in foreign aid for the next two years to cover its import bills and regain trust in its currency, Al Arabiya Television reported. Hamdok said Sudan will need $2 billion in foreign deposits to stop the African nation’s pound from falling further. The prime minister said Sudan has started negotiations seeking to have the U.S. remove the country from its terrorism-sponsor list, according to Al Arabiya.
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Economist's Calculation Shows Zimbabwe's Inflation Is 230% @economics Africa |
Zimbabwe’s official annual inflation rate was 230% in July, according to John Robertson, an economist based in Harare, but the nation’s statistics office won’t tell you that. Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said earlier this month that the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency won’t report year-on-year inflation figures until February 2020 and will only release the monthly moves in the consumer-price index. Less than three years after Zimbabwe had deflation, the economy may be heading back to the hyperinflation of a decade ago after the introduction of a new currency pushed up prices and led to shortages of goods from bread to fuel.
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Investors Say No Thanks to Ghana Debt Offering Yield Above 20% @economics Africa |
In a world awash with negative yields, Ghana offered debt returning more than 20% -- and investors weren’t interested. The West African nation sold 162.1 million cedis ($30 million) of 20-year bonds Thursday with a yield of 20.2%, well short of its target of raising 450 million cedis, as investors balked at the term and currency risk. “The duration is too long for the level of investor confidence in the economy,” Anthony Asare, the Accra-based head of treasury at GCB Bank Ltd., the nation’s biggest lender and a primary dealer in government debt, said by phone. “People are not very certain over that length of time.” Ghana, which completed a four-year International Monetary Fund program in April, raised its fiscal deficit projection for the year to 4.5% of gross domestic product from 4.2% in a mid-year review of the budget. Inflation quickened to 9.4% in the year through July as the cedi declined about 10% against the dollar. The Ministry of Finance warned earlier this month that the country is at “high risk” of debt distress. “The yield pick up is not sufficient to compensate for the risk,” Mark Bohlund, an Africa economist at Bloomberg Economics, said in an emailed response to questions. “If you’re a foreign investor then you not only care about the yield on the bond but also at what exchange rate you can repatriate your money.”
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19-AUG-2019 :: Emerging and Frontier Markets look in big trouble this time around. Africa |
Now the last time G7 Economies went full on ‘’zombie’’ the liquidity surge washed up just about everywhere in every corner of the World. It was characterised as the Global Hunt for Yield. Now when safe Haven Demand turns parabolic, Investors are signalling they are not interested in the return but only in getting their Principal back. Emerging and Frontier Markets look in big trouble this time around.
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@StanChartKE reports H1 2019 EPS +5.486% Earnings here Africa |
Par Value: 5/- Closing Price: 194.50 Total Shares Issued: 343510571.00 Market Capitalization: 66,812,806,060 EPS: 23.09 PE: 8.424
Standard Chartered Bank Kenya H1 2019 results through 30th June 2019 vs. 30th June 2018 H1 Kenya government securities – available for sale 98.008575b vs. 116.136514b -15.609% H1 Loans and advances to customers (net) 120.064909b vs. 111.748653b +7.442% H1 Total assets 294.542970b vs. 295.955246b -0.477% H1 Customer deposits 228.499892b vs. 230.845308b-1.016% H1 Total shareholders’ equity 46.873705b vs. 44.641514b+5.000% H1 Total interest income 12.732332b vs. 13.741748b-7.346% H1 Customer deposits interest expense [2.602577b] vs. [3.358699b] -22.512% H1 Total interest expenses [2.886305b] vs. [3.898873b] -25.971% H1 Net interest income 9.846027b vs. 9.842875b +0.032% H1 Other fees and commissions 2.410907b vs. 2.821839b -14.563% H1 Total operating income 14.559215b vs. 14.663490b -0.711% H1 Loan loss provision [378.942m] vs. [1.266286b] -70.075% H1 Total other operating expenses [7.638944b] vs. [8.092601b] -5.606% H1 Profit before tax and exceptional items 6.920271b vs. 6.570889b +5.317% H1 Profit after tax and exceptional items 4.705902b vs. 4.466719b +5.355% EPS 13.46 vs. 12.76 +5.486% Dividend per share 5.00 vs. 5.00 – Net NPL and advances 12.642305b vs. 11.727030b +7.805% Liquidity ratio 67.23% vs. 71.31% +4.080%
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@FlameTreeGroup reports H1 EPS 2019 -77.273% Earnings here Africa |
Par Value: Closing Price: 2.80 Total Shares Issued: 161866804.00 Market Capitalization: 453,227,051 EPS: 0.19 PE: 14.737
Flame Tree Group HY 2019 results through 30th June2019 vs. 30th June 2018 HY Revenue 1.254949910bvs.1.265671964b -0.847% HY Cost of sales [856.151845m] vs. [861.833396m] -0.659% HY Gross profit [398.798065m] vs. [403.838568m] -1.248% HY Other operating income 2.834978m vs. 4.894212m -42.075% HY Selling and distribution costs [207.681819m] vs. [182.639627m] +13.711% HY Administrative expenses [115.658006m] vs. [116.695930m] -0.889% HY Other operating expenses [32.688054m] vs. [19.933230m] +63.988% HY Operating profit after gain on disposal of Property, Plant and Equipment 45.605164m vs. 89.463993m -49.024% HY Finance Costs [36.011003m] vs. [34.613987m] +4.036% HY Profit before tax 9.594161m vs. 54.850006m -82.508% HY Profit for the period 9.594161m vs. 39.917062m -75.965% EPS 0.05 vs. 0.22 -77.273% Shareholders’ Funds 1.352430754b vs. 853.683622m +58.423% Cash and cash equivalents at end of period [106.691055m] vs. [189.814676m]-43.792% PRESS RELEASE H1 2019 reported revenue Kes 1,255M Gross Profit reached 399M, with gross margin at 32% EBITDA was 68.9M, 5.5% over sales and a decrease of -39% vs. LY 23rd August 2019, Nairobi – Flame TREE Group Holdings (FTGH: NSE) the diversified manufacturer and distributor of plastic tanks, cosmetics, snacks, spices and playground equipment is pleased to announce its financial performance for HY2019. The group reported revenue in H1 2019 of Kes 1,255M and gross profit reached 399M, with gross margin at 32% all in line with previous year. By Business line Plastics: Sales in plastics was up by +13%, reporting a Gross Profit of 293.5 MM (+8% vs. LY), showing a slight reduction in margin by 1.4 p.p. which is mainly due to the negative impact of the business situation in Ethiopia and Mozambique. The division also posted a sharp increase in Selling & Distribution costs (+27% and +30MM vs. LY), mainly linked to transport costs and sales teams. Snacks: Sales was down -15% vs. LY. Total Gross Profit was also down to 16MM (-32% vs. LY) caused by the drought experienced in the country resulting in scarcity of potatoes and price increases. This affected both production and margins. Cosmetics: Reported a positive growth in sales +11% vs. LY. Despite the higher cost of sales due to 16MM paid in demurrage charges, gross profit moved up by 9% vs. LY. Margin for last 2 months improved and was above 30%. The division also reported an increase in distribution expenses and higher cost of transport. EBT remained the same level as LY, and EBITDA improved 4%. We have undertaken strong investments in marketing with advertising campaigns in mainstream and online media platforms, we have opened a new SuzieBeauty store in Sarit Center and launched a new product range in ZOE lotions which will have a positive impact on revenue in the second half of the year. Highlights H1 The group has made significant improvements in production, staff & logistics and marketing: Inauguration of new factory in Ethiopia, now fully operative. New store of Suzie Beauty in Sarit Center. Distribution of cosmetics in Mozambique and considerable increase in exports to Rwanda. Several new machines: blancher and oil filter in Chirag, PET machine & compressor and second injection moulding machine in Jojo, new HDPE pipe machine in Rwanda to meet demand of projects in agriculture, homogenizer machine in Flame Tree Africa. Additional investment in 9 trucks to reduce logistic costs in Kenya • New media promotion with Bahati as Brand Ambassador for ZOE Men’s range, several promos and marketing actions like launch of 5 new products on the Churchill Show - Laugh Festival including our Zoe fragrance lotions & Men’s Shampoo, merchandising actions and focus on product value. • Launch of new Chigs Corn Crunch range in the snacks line. • Revaluation of assets made by an independent company brought 216,2 million KES of additional value to the Trial Balance. According to Mr. Heril Bangera, CEO Flame Tree Group, “We have seen a very positive trend in the last 2 months both in sales and margin. Traditionally the second half of the year shows better performance than H1, and we are still targeting to push for final net growth in Sales and Profit vs LY.”
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