Reaching an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a four-year $15.6 billion EFF program allows us to talk about solving the problem of financing the state budget deficit 2023 and the possibility to more actively seek funds for reconstruction, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said.
“We are also actively working to find funds for the recovery, and that will be the main focus and priority of our activities right now,” he said on Wednesday’s national telethon.
Marchenko said the EFF program is an anchor program, allowing donor support to come together. “If all those commitments made by the G7 countries are fulfilled, we can close the state budget deficit for 2023,” stated the head of the Ministry of Finance.
Talking about attraction of funds for reconstruction, the Minister noted that this year Ukraine will not be able to spend more than $14 billion, “these are the figures that have been agreed upon by the World Bank experts together with the relevant authorities: the Ministry of Reconstruction and other ministries.
According to him, the Russian frozen assets will not help in solving this problem this year, and the Ministry of Finance will try to seek funds on its own.
“We in pre-war times did not master any more than we are now proposing. We have a war going on right now, not always a business that does renovations, repairs, is willing to work with a country that’s at war. Therefore, after the war there will be a completely different reality and other opportunities, including the involvement of private investment and business in the reconstruction of Ukraine, “- Marchenko commented on the recently voiced general assessment of Ukraine’s needs for reconstruction in $411 billion and the need for 2023.
The Minister believes that the post-war capacity increase is not a difficult task.
As reported, the Ukrainian government, the World Bank Group, the European Commission and the United Nations recently raised Ukraine’s recovery needs estimate to $411 billion as of February 24, 2023 from $349 billion as of June 1, 2022.
RDNA2 estimates that Ukraine will require $14 billion in investment in 2023 for priority recovery and reconstruction.
The need to finance the state budget deficit in 2023 is estimated at a minimum of $38 billion.
On March 28, 2023 the Henley & Partners company provided the annual report on prosperity of Africa.
According to the Africa Wealth Report 2023, published by Henley & Partners in partnership with New World Wealth, the total amount of private wealth currently owned by individuals on the African continent is USD 2.4 trillion. This figure is expected to rise by 42% over the next 10 years.
South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and Morocco are the “big five” in terms of concentration of private capital, together they account for 56% of all wealthy people (HNWI) of the continent and more than 90% of its billionaires. There are currently 138,000 HNWIs in Africa with a personal net worth of USD 1 million or more, as well as 328 cent-millionaires with a net worth of USD 100 million or more, and 23 dollar billionaires.
Despite a challenging past decade, South Africa still has at least twice as many wealthy people as any other African country and 30% of the continent’s cent-millionaires. Egypt leads in the number of billionaires, while Mauritius boasts the highest wealth per capita in Africa at USD 37,500, followed by South Africa at USD 10,880 and Namibia at USD 10,050.
The fastest growing markets in the world
Andrew Amolis, head of research at New World Wealth, notes: “Africa is home to some of the fastest growing markets in the world, including Rwanda, Mauritius and the Seychelles, where wealth growth has been 72%, 69% and 54% respectively over the past decade.” Mauritius is expected to show strong private capital growth of 75% over the next decade (until 2032). This would make it the fourth fastest growing country in the world for the period in terms of millionaire growth, behind Vietnam, India and New Zealand.
richest cities in africa
4 of the 10 richest cities in Africa are in South Africa: Johannesburg has the largest number of millionaires in Africa (14,600), Cairo is in second place with 7,400 ultra-wealthy residents, followed by Cape Town (7,200). Lagos (5,400) is fourth, Nairobi (4,700) is fifth. Two other South African cities, Durban (3600) and Pretoria (2400), are ranked sixth and eighth respectively.
Namibia – the new star of Africa
Namibia is predicted to become one of Africa’s fastest growing markets, with the ultra-rich projected to grow by more than 60% by 2032. By December 2022, the country’s total investment wealth was USD 26 billion, and the number of dollar millionaires was 2,100 people. Launched in March 2023, the Residential Residency (RP) offer by investment could attract even more wealthy investors from around the world.
Investment migration is an innovative financial instrument
Dominique Volek, head of private banking at Henley & Partners, notes that more and more African countries are aiming to attract wealthy people through the provision of residence permits and citizenship by investment. These direct investments have the potential to seriously transform the economy: “As wealth grows on the continent and countries realize the benefits of promoting economic progress, we expect investment migration in Africa to continue to gain momentum in the coming years. This applies not only to demand in the domestic market on the part of investors from African countries, but also on the supply side. More and more African countries are looking to launch their own investment migration programs to increase the influx of both capital and talent.”
About the Africa Wealth Report 2023
The Africa Wealth Report 2023 is published annually by Henley & Partners in association with South African think tank New World Wealth. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of private equity across the continent, including trends in high net worth consumption, the luxury market and wealth management in Africa.
For more than a decade, New World Wealth has been tracking the wealth movements and buying habits of the world’s richest people. The firm’s research covers 90 countries and 150 cities around the world. It uses a model to determine wealth levels in each country with key wealth parameters from HNWIs own database of over 150,000 contacts, stock market and real estate statistics, and household income, savings and debt statistics in each market. The New World Wealth model also displays the historical growth trends of wealth in each country, taking into account fluctuations in the exchange rate against the US dollar, as well as movements in the stock market and real estate prices.
Read the report
German authorities are planning to allocate another EUR12 billion for military support to Ukraine, Bloomberg reported, citing sources on Wednesday.
The Bundestag budget committee is expected to approve the plans of German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Wednesday. Thus, in case of approval of such a step, the total amount of funds, directed by Berlin for military aid to Kiev, will increase up to EUR14.2 billion.
In particular, the amount planned for 2023 will more than double and reach EUR5.4 billion. The rest of the funds – EUR8.8 billion – will be available if necessary in the coming years. The money will not come from the Defense Ministry’s budget or the special EUR100 billion fund for the modernization of the Bundeswehr.
In addition, on Wednesday, the Bundestag budget committee is expected to approve the purchase of 10 self-propelled rapid-fire howitzers from Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH & Co KG worth EUR 185 million; these guns are to replace the howitzers transferred by Germany to Ukraine.
Representative of the Scottish National Party Humza Yousaf took the oath of office as Scotland’s first minister on Wednesday, Sky News reported.
“Humza Yousaf took the oath of office as Scotland’s first minister,” the channel reports.
He accepted the post from Nicola Sturgeon, who had been Scotland’s first minister for a long time. She announced her resignation from the post earlier this year.
Yousaf won Monday’s election as leader of the ruling Scottish National Party. Normally, the first minister becomes the ruling party’s nominee.
Yousaf is 37 years old, making him the youngest leader of the Scottish National Party and the first Scottish minister. In addition, he is the first leader of this region of Great Britain with roots in South Asia, and the first to practice Islam. He was born in Glasgow and graduated from university in that city. His father was born in Pakistan and immigrated to Scotland in the 1960s with his family. Yousaf’s mother was born in Kenya to a family of South Asian origin.
The Western media noted that Humza Yousaf had pledged to continue campaigning for Scottish independence.
Cement production in Ukraine in 2022 decreased by 51% compared to 2021 – to 5.4 million tons, while its consumption was 35% of the indicator of the previous year, according to the association “Ukrcement”.
“Eight enterprises of the Association in 2022 produced cement strategically important for the country, which was primarily used on important construction sites of defense value. The decline in cement consumption led, respectively, to a decrease in production. At the same time, January 2022 was a record for cement production in the last six years”, – said Liudmila Krypka, executive director-head of the scientific and technical information department of the association “Ukrcement”.
According to her, export of products to the European Union helped slow down production decline. For example, cement exports for the year decreased by only 3.7% and amounted to 935 thousand tons, while imports decreased 14.8 times to 39 thousand tons.
In the structure of imports last year, 46.5% were ordinary cements, 41.6% – white cements, 10.9% – other hydraulic cements, 1% – alumina.
“The dynamics of cement exports 2022 indicates that the Ukrainian producers have fully provided the domestic market and continued to support their production with deliveries to other countries, mainly to the EU,” – said the expert.
In turn, Ukrainian companies in 2022 produced 16 types of cement, among which the most popular were cements with slag. At the same time manufacturers continue searching for ways to increase the efficiency of Portland cement while reducing the share of clinker, which is one of the main factors of reducing CO2 emissions, emphasizes Krypka.
The association is also considering using shredded construction waste from demolished buildings (linoleum, carpets, polyethylene, rubber, wood, plastic, roofing felt etc.) to burn in cement kilns as an alternative fuel, which can reduce the need for energy.
Last year “Ukrcement” in cooperation with SE “GosdorNII” published “Album of standard designs of rigid road clothes”, which contains information on variants of road clothes taking into account the category of roads, region, soil, technology.
“Road construction is a material-intensive production with a high proportion of the cost of raw and basic materials. Lack of bitumen forces us to switch to the best practices and domestic construction materials. Detailed characteristics of each construction are collected in the album, as well as technologies of restoration or strengthening of road with cement concrete”, – points out the executive director of the association.
Association “Ukrcement” was created in January 2004 by reorganization of Ukrainian concern of enterprises and organizations of cement and asbestos cement industry “Ukrcement”.
Imports of drugs to Ukraine in 2022, after five years of growth, decreased by 38% compared to the previous year – to $ 1.9 billion from $ 3.1 billion.
This is evidenced by the research conducted by the marketing agency Top Lead together with the pharmaceutical company “Darnitsa”.
According to the study, the largest importers of medicines to Ukraine are Germany with the import volume of about $ 368 million, India ($ 173 million), France ($ 31 million), Italy ($ 125 million) and Slovenia ($ 110 million).
At the same time, export of Ukrainian medicines in 2022 decreased by 24% as compared with 2021, and amounted to $ 238 million.
The biggest buyer of Ukrainian medicines is Uzbekistan, where Ukrainian companies exported products worth almost $52m, which is 36% less than a year earlier.
At the same time, other top three buyers of Ukrainian medicines increased export – Kazakhstan by 12% (to $ 32 million), Lithuania – by 324% ($23 million).
“In 2022, Ukrainian companies stopped selling medicines to Russia and Belarus, export to Lithuania and Latvia increased. But despite this, most of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical export goes to Asia”, – report’s authors emphasize.
They also noted that, although the largest manufacturers of medicines in Ukraine have GMP-certificates issued by Gosleksluzhba, that confirm the production and control of drugs in accordance with international quality standards, the EU does not yet recognize these certificates. “Therefore, to export to the EU, a manufacturer has to undergo an additional check by the regulatory authorities of one or another EU country. The task for Ukraine in the near future is to achieve recognition of Ukrainian certificates in the EU,” the authors of the study stressed.
