The following company announcements, scheduled economic indicators, debt and currency market moves and political events may affect African markets on Thursday.
- - - - - EVENTS: *Kenya holds fresh presidential elections after Supreme Court nullified August vote
GLOBAL MARKETS Asian stocks barely changed on Thursday, capped as Wall Street shares pulled back from record highs, while the euro stretched gains ahead of a European Central Bank meeting that could take a major step away from its accommodative policy. MKTS/GLOB
WORLD OIL PRICES U.S. oil prices extended declines on Thursday after government data showed a surprise climb in U.S. crude inventories. O/R
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SOUTH AFRICA MARKETS South Africa's rand dropped to a 10-month low on Wednesday after Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba flagged weaker growth expectations and rising government debt in his budget speech. Stocks were firmer. SECURITY Suspected Boko Haram militants killed eight soldiers and one civilian in an attack in Nigeria's northeast, a police official said on Wednesday, the latest sign that the eight-year conflict is far from slowing. GASOLINE Nigeria must remove its gasoline price cap to prevent shortages, enable investment and keep the government from using valuable resources to import fuel, delegates at the OTL Expo in Lagos said on Wednesday. UNILEVER/BOND Unilever (LON:ULVR) Nigeria's UNILEVE.LG 58.85 billion-naira ($187 million) rights issue was 120 percent subscribed, the company said on Wednesday. ELECTION Kenyans vote on Thursday in a presidential election re-run overshadowed by an opposition boycott that will almost certainly hand victory to President Uhuru Kenyatta, but with a mandate compromised by low turnout and procedural flaws. CURRENCY Political tension spurred by a plan to extend Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni's rule is fuelling depreciation pressure on the local currency, the shilling UGX= , a central bank official told Reuters on Wednesday. OIL Uganda expects investments of $15 billion to $20 billion in its oil industry in the next three to four years, Ernest Rubondo, executive director of Uganda's petroleum authority, told a conference in Cape Town. INFLATION Ghana's producer price inflation GHPPIY=ECI rose to 7.6 percent year-on-year in September from 6.6 percent a month before on the back of higher fuel prices, the statistics office said on Wednesday. COAST OIL Ivory Coast is offering 22 new blocks for hydrocarbon exploration at a new licensing round which started on Wednesday, its oil minister said. PLAGUE A plague epidemic in Madagascar has killed 124 people since August in an outbreak that has hit the island's two main cities the hardest, the authorities said on Wednesday. RATES Namibia's central bank left its benchmark lending rate unchanged at 6.75 percent on Wednesday, saying the level was appropriate to support economic growth and currency stability. SUDAN USA The United States has lost trust in South Sudan's government for fueling the country's civil war and it must bring peace or risk losing support from Washington, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the nation's President Salva Kiir. SUDAN VIOLENCE Foreign victims of an attack on aid workers in South Sudan began giving testimony via video link from the United States on Wednesday in the trial of government soldiers accused of murder and gang rape. VIOLENCE Three people died in Somalia on Wednesday in different attacks, one of which targeted a patrol of peacekeepers near the country's capital, Mogadishu, officials told Reuters. GOLD/BARRICK Barrick Gold Corp ABX.TO said on Wednesday it would work with the government of Tanzania to find a way for a gold export ban to be lifted on its Acacia Mining AAL.L unit and was aiming for a final agreement in the first half of 2018. MINING Human rights groups asked Tanzania's president on Wednesday to address allegations of rights abuses at Acacia Mining's ACAA.L North Mara gold mine in talks under way with the firm's parent company, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
BURUNDI INFLATION Burundi's annual inflation rate rose to 15.2 percent in September from 13.9 percent in August, driven up by high costs of housing, water and electricity, official data showed on Wednesday. the latest precious metals report click on GOL/
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