- Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled in favour of Vice President Atiku Abubakar, stating the Independent National Electoral Commission has no power to disqualify any candidate. The commission is now working on including Abubakar on the ballot, although it is not clear how this is logistically feasible given presidential elections are scheduled for this Saturday. Election violence is widely anticipated.
- Poland’s deputy PM and finance minister Zyta Gilowska foresees GDP growth at 7% in Q1 versus 6.4% posted in Q4/2006, and predicts 6.0% growth for the year compared with 5.8% in 2006. She also said that low inflation in Poland is the effect of rises in labour efficiency and slight but noticeable appreciation of the zloty.
The Finance ministry also announced PLN 1.8bn in PS0412 T-bonds on Wednesday will be issued. The last auction of these bonds took place in March 2007. At that time, the ministry sold the whole offer of PLN 1.8bn worth of bonds and investor demand was PLN 4.89bn. Average yield was 4.967%, the minimum price was PLN 989.80 and average price was PLN 990.09.
- Egypt’s Minister of Finance, Youssef Boutros Ghali confirmed the economic reform process would continue including the privatization of most public sector companies. Ghali said economic reforms were needed to decrease the gap among the rich and the poor and reducing inflation. Ghali expects the privatization program should fetch the government EGP 15 to EGP 20bn (USD 3.5bn) in revenues.
- In Zimbabwe, the release of the monthly inflation figures has been put back a week. Inflation is fast approaching 2000%, hitting 1730% in February- the highest in the world, but ministers are reluctant to disclose these latest figures in fear of further embarrassment. IMF forecast inflation to hit 5000% by the end of the year, if Mugabe continues his crippling mismanagement of the economy.
- Information provided by Euromoney group sources.