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Oil prices trade above $80pb, a 2-month high

Brent gained 0.26% to trade at $80.32pb today as US inflation cooled for the 12th consecutive month. This signalled to the market a potential end to the US Fed’s rate-hiking cycle. US headline inflation fell to 3% in June from a peak of 9.1% a year ago, while core inflation moderated to 4.8% from 5.3% in May 2023. Oil prices were also supported by the 45.3% surge in China’s crude imports to 12.67mbpd in June and sustained supply cuts from Saudi Arabia (1 mbpd) and Russia (500,000 bpd).

Meanwhile, OPEC, which accounts for 40% of global oil supply, has maintained an optimistic outlook on global oil demand, revising its growth forecast for 2023 upward to 2.44mbpd from 2.35mbpd on strong fuel consumption in China and India.

Ginger’s potential yet to be fully explored in Nigeria

Nigeria is the second-largest producer of ginger globally, accounting for about 16% of total ginger production globally. Nigeria is also the top producer of ginger in Africa, followed by Cameroon and Mali. Unfortunately, ginger production, like most agricultural commodities in Nigeria, has witnessed its fair share of challenges, including lack of value addition. As a result, Nigeria fails to realise substantial export earnings from this commodity like India does. In 2021, India realised $130 million in exports from ginger, 755.26% higher than Nigeria’s ginger export earnings of $15.2 million within the same period.

These and other burning economic issues were discussed on the Business Morning programme on Channels TV.

Click the link to watch the video.

Enjoy your read!