Daily Watch – Manufacturing bouncing back, Lagos rent burden among world’s highest

4th July 2017

  • A report by RENTCafé, a property search website, has ranked Lagos as the third least of world cities that are highly unaffordable for renters. The report released puts Lagos rent at $355 (₦129,575) per month while the household income is $625 (₦228,125), making Lagos third behind Manhattan, New york city with 59 percent and Mexico City with 60 percent. The report also identified the three least cities as vibrant urban hubs with thriving or emerging economies but unaffordable for renters. The ranking is coming following Pwc’s Opportunity report that listed Lagos at 28 position of 30 cities. In its latest Cities of Opportunity report, PwC has also set up what is basically the shortlist of the world’s best cities to work and live in. The implication of the recent report is renters in Mexico City, Manhattan and Lagos face a severe rent burden. Rent takes up more than half of a household’s income each month. In other words, in an average family with two earners, one of them works only to pay the rent, and it’s still not enough.
  • Fitch Ratings has assigned Nigeria’s $300 million 5.625% senior unsecured bonds a final rating of ‘B+’. The final rating is the same as the expected rating that Fitch assigned on 14 June 2017. It is in line with Nigeria’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating of ‘B+’. The rating is sensitive to changes in Nigeria’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency IDR. On 24 January 2017, Fitch affirmed Nigeria’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency IDR at ‘B+’ and revised the Outlook to Negative. The Long-Term Local-Currency IDR was also affirmed at ‘B+’ with a Negative Outlook.
  • Two weeks after it declared force majeure, MainOne says it has completed repair works on its submarine cable. Funke Opeke, MainOne’s CEO, said the company conducted tests to ensure the cable is in good operating condition. “We have concluded a full repair of the submarine cable with a final splice yesterday, Sunday, July 2, 2017. The cable has been tested to be in good operating condition and we have since restored all our customer’s services to normal operating conditions. During this period, we had some restoration capacity and rerouted internet traffic on our network via alternative routes to minimise the impact of the outage to our customers,” she said. MainOne’s customers include internet service providers, numerous networks and content providers.
  • The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index increased to 52.9 index points in June 2017, showing expansion in the manufacturing sector for the third consecutive month. The PMI is an indicator of the economic health of the manufacturing sector, and is based on five major indicators: new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries, and the employment environment. The latest PMI report showed that 12 of the 16 sub-sectors reported growth in the review month in the following order: computer & electronic products; paper products; plastics & rubber products; primary metal; transportation equipment; petroleum & coal products; appliances & components; textile, apparel, leather & footwear; furniture & related products; electrical equipment; food, beverage & tobacco products; and fabricated metal products. On the other hand, four other sub-sectors declined in the order: non-metallic mineral products; cement; chemical & pharmaceutical products, and printing & related support activities.