The Nigerian Stock Exchange Consumer Goods Index (CGI), an index that tracks the performance of consumer goods companies, depreciated by 8.12% in the month of February at the back of sell-offs and building negative sentiments in the market.

A preview of the performance of the index revealed that as of the close of trading activities on Friday 26th February 2021, the index stood at 563.85 index points, from 613.69 index points at the open of trade for the month.

In line with this, the Consumer Goods Index shed a total of 49.84 index points – the highest since March 2020 (-132.53 index points)- as wary investors offload shares of top consumer goods company on NSE, leading to the decline in the share price of Nestle, Dangote Sugar, Flour Mills, NB and eight (8) others.

Source:Tradingview

What you should know

• The NSE Consumer goods Index was designed to provide an investable benchmark to capture the performance of companies in the consumer goods sector. The index comprises the most capitalized and liquid companies in food, beverage, and tobacco.
• The index is based on the market capitalization methodology, as it tracks the performance of fifteen consumer goods companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange which includes, Nestle, Nigerian Breweries (NB), Dangote Sugar, and Flour Mills.
• The overall performance of the companies was bearish, as the index closed on a negative note in the month of February with 12 losers relative to 3 gainers.
• NNFM (-27.48%) led the losers’ chart, while MCNICHOLS (+56.86%) was the top gainer in the month of February, followed by GUINNESS (+21.32%).

Top gainers

• MCNICHOLS up 56.86% to close at N0.8
• GUINNESS up 21.32% to close N23.05
• UNILEVER up 0.74% to close at N13.95

Top losers

• NNFM down by 27.48% to close at N7.02
• VITAFOAM down by 22.89% to close at N7.75
• CHAMPION down by 18.97% to close at N2.52
• NB down by 17.46% to close at N52
• FLOURMILLS down by 16.86% to close at N28.85

The Dangote Group has suggested the inclusion of a provision that in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) that only companies that have active refining license should be allowed to import petroleum products.

The company, which is on the verge of completing a 650,000-barrels-per-day refinery in Lagos, said this would encourage investment in local refining.

According to a report by Punch, this disclosure was made by the Chief Strategy Officer of Dangote Group, Aliyu Suleiman, in a presentation during a visit by members of the National Assembly’s Joint committee on PIB to the project site as he highlighted several recommendations by the company.

What the Dangote Group top official is saying

Suleiman said, “Nigeria is exceptional in being a major oil producer with near-zero refining capacity.

“Though the Dangote Refinery will help address this, there could be periods when petroleum products may need to be imported, such as when the refinery is undergoing turnaround maintenance or if demand grows to exceed capacity.”

The company made a recommendation for a backward integration policy to be applied in the downstream petroleum sector to encourage investment in local refining.

He said, “To support this, licence to import any product shortfalls should be assigned only to companies with active refining licences. Import volume to be allocated between participants based on their respective production in the preceding quarter. Such import will be done under the DSDP scheme.’’

The Dangote Group said that fuel imported into Nigeria are of very low quality with a harmful effect on health and also impacts the performance and durability of vehicles, especially high-performance cars.

The company suggested that to safeguard the health of Nigerians, imported petroleum products must conform to the Afri-5 specification (50 ppm sulphur) in line with the ECOWAS declaration of February 2020 on the adoption of the Afri-Fuels Roadmap.

What this means

• The implementation of this policy suggestion will go a long to improve the local refining capacity of refined petroleum products in the country and subsequently end its massive importation that is the current trend.
• This will also help conserve the scarce foreign exchange that is being expended on the importation of petroleum products in the country.
• The Dangote refinery which has faced several delays in its completion is expected to take in 2021.

The Federal Government has confirmed that the first tranche of Covid-19 vaccines will arrive in Nigeria on Tuesday, March 2, 2021.

This follows the readiness of the country to receive its first shipment of 4 million Covid-19 vaccines from COVAX, a World Health Organization (WHO)-backed initiative set up to procure and ensure equitable distribution of vaccines for free among countries across the globe, as the world races to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

According to a report from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), this confirmation was made by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha, on Saturday in Abuja while evaluating the country’s fight against the disease.

What the Secretary to the Government of the Federation is saying

Mustapha, who is also the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, disclosed the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) would be organizing the shipment from Mumbai, India.

He said, “They (vaccines) should depart India on March 1, 2021, in the night and arrive in Abuja on the 2nd of March, 2021.”

The PTF chairman was full of praises for Nigeria’s health workers and the various frontline workers for working hard to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

In his evaluation of the country’s response to Covid-19 in the last one year, Mustapha said the PTF had performed very well with a very robust national response.

He said, “We have succeeded in discharging our mandate of managing the pandemic with a well-defined process and a robust national response.’’

The SGF said that the strategies developed by his committee to manage the pandemic had been replicated in some other countries, especially the compulsory Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing for travellers.

He explained that the pandemic had helped the country to improve on its health infrastructure, citing the increase in the number of infectious diseases testing laboratories from 4 to 132 across the country.

What you should know

• COVAX, which was set up in April 2020 to help ensure a fairer distribution of coronavirus vaccines between the rich and poor nations, said it would deliver 2 billion doses to member-states by the end of 2021.
• The Federal Government had earlier announced that the first 4 million doses of the vaccines from COVAX would arrive in the country by the end of February 2021.
• Ghana was reported to have received 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines on Wednesday, making it the first African country to benefit from the COVAX programme, with Cote d`Ivoire also receiving over 500,000 doses of the Oxford-Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Friday.