NUMSA strike to start next week! Confirmation is out that the anticipated, dreaded steel strike action will commence next week Tuesday, confirmation has come from NUMSA themselves that they will embark on industrial action at 5am on the day.
Over 430,000 workers across 9,000 steel and engineering companies will down tools.
NUMSA initially demanded a 15% increase across the board, however in August, it revised the wage demand down to 8% after declaring a dispute at the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council.
NUMSA says the strike can only be avoided if employers meet workers’ demands.
We will keep our customers up to date with the latest developments as and when received.
Please note that we will be working tirelessly around the clock to ensure that all orders can be dispatched prior to the strike and we will evaluate the situation on a day-by-day basis.
Border updates, over a month, 44 days to be precise, that’s how long the current phase of bottlenecking in the northbound lane south of Beitbridge has lasted.
On the bright side, the queue of trucks waiting to cross into Zimbabwe is around 6kms currently which could also be seen as a norm, drivers on average having to wait roughly four days to get through the border.
Word is out that there is a new charge system being implemented next month that will see transporters fork out additional costs that have been put in place by the Zimbabwean minister of transport, as it stands heavy vehicles will be paying an additional $100, goods vehicles $175 and abnormal load operators will have to pay out $300 a load.
With just a few days remaining before the revamped facilities at Beitbridge come online on the Zimbabwean side of the notoriously congested crossing, transporters are eager for relief from long delays in the northbound queue south of the border. Some of the upgrades to note is a new weighbridge, refurbished scanners a warehouse and newly built roads and a parking area.
The teething issues at the Kazungula Border Post, which a month ago still meant trucks took 30 hours on average to pass through a single-window system, have been sorted out that there is no processing queue at the moment.
It is noted that transporters who are currently using that route can do Johannesburg to Lusaka and offload in three days.
US ports battling record volumes, a behemoth of carrier queues, building up at anchorage off the United States west coast, has over 60 box ships waiting to berth at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
65 container vessels were waiting for slots as the US economy gathers momentum and importers rally to meet demand by building up their inventories., The two ports, which are said to handle about 40% of America’s inbound goods, used to record maybe one ship waiting to offload in pre-Covid times.
With containers at sea, US retailers and suppliers are running short of everything, from toys to timber, clothes and construction materials, most of which are coming in from China.
Container rates and availability having negative impact, the worldwide container crunch is continuing to weigh heavily on the bottom line of shippers as the unavailability of boxes and related costs mount up while freight forwarders increasingly find themselves unable to cope with rising costs and crippling delays.
The backlog for booked containers continues to grow with current container availability reaching a two-week backlog and on top of that, almost no carrier space to be had until the middle of October all whilst carriers are still charging for detention and demurrage.
US shippers and truckers are still awaiting feedback from a Federal Maritime Commission undertaking to take action against the liner industry for D&D charges, agricultural and industrial exporters in the US have approached President Joe Biden to intervene in week-long delays for containers, related costs and loss of income.
China completes Maersk deal, a transaction said to be netting Maersk $987.3 million reportedly the most lucrative in the line’s history of some 94 odd years, will see the Danish line part with its container manufacturing subsidiary after China International Marine Containers succeeded in the purchase of Maersk Container Industry.
With the deal now finally in the bag, after months of negotiations, Chinese factories will be responsible for manufacturing 96% of the world’s dry bulk containers, and 100% of all reefer boxes effectively handing China a monopoly in the global container business.
China power constraints cause havoc, Copper prices fell on Wednesday as investors reduced risk exposure amid uncertainty caused by a power restriction in China.
Power restrictions in China have hurt supplies of some metals in recent months, but electricity curbs recently spread to more downstream sectors such as tech giants Apple and Tesla which poses a threat to supply chains and could break at the peak season for the sale of electronic goods and items in China.
A trade squabble with Australia has led to the shortage of coal where almost 60% of the Chinese economy is powered by coal, it is estimated that up to 44% of China’s industrial activity has been affected by power shortages which has enraged the public and has also caused shutdowns to traffic lights and 3G mobile phone coverage in some areas.
President Xi Jinping’s decision for Beijing to stop building new power plants overseas is bad news for Zimbabwe too as the African country is heavily dependent on China after it had sanctions imposed on it by the United States and some European countries because of former President Robert Mugabe’s human rights abuses and a policy of seizing land from white farmers.
Zimbabwe was planning to build several coal-fired power plants costing a total of US$15 billion, with Chinese lenders initially committing to fund them.
However, earlier this week, in a pre-recorded speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Xi sounded a death knell for several coal projects, including in Zimbabwe, for which Chinese lenders were expected to provide financing.
China is going on a week-long holiday starting October 1, with investors squaring positions ahead of the break to reduce exposure in a volatile market environment.
Zimasco completes feasibility Study, the Zimbabwean ferrochrome producer has completed a feasibility study for the construction of the Mberengwa furnaces, where it also hopes to open new mines in the same district.
The company announced a US$35 million investment in new furnaces at its Kwekwe smelting facility, as part of a goal to expand output by 40% by the end of next year.
Zimasco had plans previously to create a joint venture with Afrochine, a Chinese mining firm for the Neta project however, after Afrochine, a subsidiary of Tsingshan Holding Group, backed out of plans to build an iron ore mine and a carbon steel plant in Zimbabwe, the company will now pursue this alone.
The Mberengwa furnaces will have the capacity to produce 160,000 tonnes of ferrochrome per annum
The new Kwekwe furnaces will have a capacity of 72,000 tonnes per year, increasing Zimasco’s ferrochrome production from 180,000 to 252,000 tonnes.
A 300,000-tonne-per-year sinter plant is part of the project, where the company will be able to exploit its crumbly ore resource, something it has previously been unable to accomplish due to obsolete technology at existing chrome smelters.
Liquidator at KCM arrested, State-appointed provisional liquidator of Konkola Copper Mines has been arrested and charged with laundering more than $2million.
The commission alleged that Milingo Lungu, acting with others, engaged in theft involving 110.4-million Zambian kwachas and $250,000 between May 22, 2019 and August 15, 2021, he also obtained money by false pretences amounting to $2.2-million.
Lungu’s appointment at KCM in May 2019 triggered a legal battle with Vedanta Resources, KCM’s parent company.
Zambia’s president to meet IMF, Zambia’s president Hakainde Hichilema is due to meet officials at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, as the southern African nation tries to secure a lending programme to help it emerge from a debt crisis.
Zambia became the first African country to default on its sovereign debt during the COVID-19 pandemic after failing to keep up with payments on nearly $13 billion of international debt where a quarter of this debt is held by China and Chinese entities via deals shrouded in secrecy clauses, complicating negotiations for IMF relief.
Finance minister Situmbeko Musokotwane said last month securing an IMF programme was critical to restoring creditor confidence and giving the government access to cheaper and longer financing.
Moz government needs $300 Million to rebuild, Mozambique needs $300 million to rebuild insurgency-hit Cabo Delgado Province, the country’s Prime Minister said earlier this week.
The funds will go towards footing the bill for an emergency plan for post-conflict recovery and restoring normalcy in recovered districts in the north of Cabo Delgado.
In July, SADC countries started deploying forces to assist the Mozambican Defence Forces to fight insurgency and terrorism in the northern region.
The joint force in Mozambique is made up of the country’s Security and Defence Forces, the SADC mission to Mozambique as well as a deployment of the contingent comprised of members of the Rwanda Defence Force and the Rwanda National Police.
Rwanda was the first to send 1,000 troops to Mozambique, followed by Botswana with 296 troops whilst South Africa deployed 1,500 soldiers. Zimbabwe also sent 304 military instructors to train Mozambican soldiers to fight insurgents.
“It doesn’t matter how slow you go as long as you don’t stop”