The quarterly business confidence index compiled by FirstRand’s Rand Merchant Bank and Stellenbosch University’s Bureau for Economic Research dropped a point to 38 in the three months through September, according to a report published Wednesday.

The reading is the weakest since the third quarter of 2024, the data show.

“Business confidence has stabilised, but at a level that remains too low to support the stronger investment and employment growth South Africa needs,” said Isaah Mhlanga, chief economist at RMB.

“A sustained improvement will require better demand conditions, continued reform progress and greater certainty in the operating environment, particularly at local government.”

Confidence slipped in four of five sub-indexes, with sentiment among new-vehicle dealers taking the biggest knock.

The index dropped 11 points

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The government’s so-called Strategic Integrated Projects portfolio has grown to R1.67 trillion from about R340 billion in 2020, Ramaphosa said at the third Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium in Cape Town on Tuesday.

The projects span water and sanitation, transport and logistics, energy and electricity and municipal infrastructure,

The government will also begin publishing quarterly performance reports on the projects to track their progress, the president said.

Ramaphosa is seeking to turn the project pipeline into investment as South Africa struggles to raise economic growth to levels needed to address chronic unemployment and falling living standards.

The economy grew 1.1% in 2025, its strongest annual performance since 2022.

Investment has remained a

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South Africa’s third-biggest lender is planning to convert its representative office into a merchant bank in a move designed to diversify its earnings away from the lender’s key markets of South Africa, Kenya and Ghana, which accounted for more than 80% of profit in the six months to June.

“We’ve got a rep office in Nigeria, which we are exploring the possibilities of converting into a merchant banking license,” the bank’s chief executive officer Kenny Fihla said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

Nigeria has become increasingly compelling for institutional lenders after President Bola Tinubu began taking moves to lure investors and accelerate growth.

A merchant banking license would allow Absa to take corporate deposits and offer loans, investment banking and project finance.

The move would

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The South African company expects headline earnings per share from continuing operations to rise for the 52 weeks June 28, the company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

Revenue at its Sixty60 on-demand digital commerce operation jumped 35% to R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion) for the year.

Shoprite’s Sixty60 business is helping the firm take on competition from companies including Walmart, which has renewed its efforts to entrench itself in South Africa.

The African chain’s Checkers and Checkers Hyper — frequented by wealthier shoppers — grew 10%, more than double the 4.3% growth of the the company’s Shoprite and Usave brands, according to the statement.

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“South Africans love to gamble, but when it comes to growth, it turns out we are risk-shy,” Kganyago told a public lecture at the University of South Africa in the capital, Pretoria, on Tuesday.

“We would be much better off if we could stop betting on sports and start betting on growth instead.”

For more than a decade South Africa has grown at less than 1% a year on average, hamstrung by graft, crime and snarl ups in sectors including energy, water and logistics.

“The fundamental question we need to ask ourselves, as country, is: do we truly want to grow? It seems the answer is obvious, but it is not,” Kganyago said.

“You don’t need ‘growth with adjectives’, where growth is only worth doing if it’s the right kind

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The manufacturer expects the departures in Germany to account for most of the around 8 000 positions it’s looking to cut globally, according to people familiar with the matter.

That’s around 5% of its total workforce, the latest in a series of restructuring moves by the country’s embattled auto industry.

The offer will go out to staff in research, development, planning and other corporate functions, with factory floor workers not eligible, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the plans aren’t public.

BMW also is looking to streamline its management ranks in the coming months as part of the broader cuts, they said.

BMW and its German peers are slashing expenses in response to challenges including slumping sales in

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The West African nation shipped in 18.1 million liters of the fuel per day in June, compared with 5.6 million liters in May, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority said in a monthly report.

Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals Fze is prioritising selling fuel abroad because it’s struggled to access foreign exchange from the central bank as well as oil from the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Co under a naira-for-crude arrangement.

“We are exporting as much as possible,” Devakumar V. G. Edwin, group vice president at Dangote Refinery, said in text message response to questions.

“We are not able to get enough dollars from the central bank, and it doesn’t make any sense to be selling the products in naira and

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The Creation Yield Fund, among the country’s first to include privately originated debt investments in a regulated exchange-listed note structure, has a target size of R3 billion and initial issuance of R300 million that’s anchored by a large local pension fund.

It will channel proceeds to small and medium enterprises as well as to mid-market corporate firms through non-bank financial lenders.

“SMEs employ about 60% of the workforce in the country and contribute up to 40% to our gross domestic product but they’re struggling with a funding gap because banks still favour corporate lending quite heavily,” Creation Capital CEO Kasief Isaacs said in an interview.

“This fund is squarely aimed at starting to address that gap in a more structured and meaningful

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The African wireless carriers plan to bid in a 5G license auction expected to begin within weeks, MTN Ghana Chief Executive Officer Stephen Blewett and Telecel Group CEO Moh Damush told Bloomberg.

The auction follows the government’s decision to revoke the exclusive concession granted to Next Gen Infraco before its scheduled 2034 expiry. Radisys Corp, a unit of Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries, had been selected to provide the network infrastructure.

Communications Minister Sam George, who took office in 2025, previously said the government would open the licensing process to competition because of the slow rollout of 5G.

He declined to comment further when reached by Bloomberg. In March, the National Communications Authority said it was moving to

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“We have identified areas that can deliver significant value for Tanzania, and we are ready to work together to develop them for our mutual benefit,“ Dangote said after talks with President Samia Suluhu Hassan, according to an emailed statement late Monday.

The planned investments include a port development project and the construction of a 40-kilometer (25 miles) concrete access road to support the hub, he said.

Dangote, who already has the biggest cement plant in Tanzania, is also planning to invest in the development of a special trade zone, a 2,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant, a urea fertiliser project and transport infrastructure linking the port city of Mtwara on the Indian Ocean with Mbamba Bay on Lake Malawi in southern

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