Breaking News Today – Friday 15 August 2025

Business & Tech News 

Nigerian Government sets Ambitious GDP Growth Target

Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has set a target of 7% annual economic growth, aiming to lift the country out of its financial struggles. In the first quarter, Nigeria’s economy grew by 3.13% with an increased GDP of $243.55 billion, but the growth rate was slower than expected. While addressing the federal cabinet, President Tinubu stated that the reforms implemented have strengthened macroeconomic stability and boosted investor confidence. However, he noted that low public savings remain a constraint on growth. Critics of the president argue that he has not met the expectations that propelled him to power 14 years ago. 

Tinubu’s economic reforms, which include the suspension of long-standing and costly gas subsidies and measures taken by the central bank—such as currency devaluations aimed at stabilizing the foreign exchange rate—were intended to save the government money and attract foreign investments. Ongoing high inflation rates, currently sitting at around 22% are however hindering economic growth, with major economic sectors such as oil and Auto manufacturing posting modest growth.

S&P Upgrades India’s Sovereign Rating

Credit rating agency S&P Global has upgraded India’s long-term sovereign credit rating to “BBB” from “BBB-” citing economic resilience and sustained fiscal consolidation.The agency had revised the outlook on India’s rating in May last year to positive from stable on strong GDP growth and improved quality of government expenditure.“The upgrade of India reflects its buoyant economic growth, against the backdrop of an enhanced monetary policy environment that anchors inflationary expectations,” the rating agency said in a statement. “Together with the government’s commitment to fiscal consolidation and efforts to improve spending quality, we believe these factors have coalesced to benefit credit metrics,” it added. Markets responded positively with the Indian rupee strengthening to 87.58 against the dollar from 87.66, while the benchmark 10-year bond yield fell 7 basis points to 6.38% soon after the announcement.

Cohere Raises $500 million for Expansion

Cohere, one of the first LLM AI breakout companies, announced yesterday that it had raised an oversubscribed $500 million round, bringing its valuation to $6.8 billion. The new funding will be focussed on Cohere accelerating its global expansion and will also fund the building of their next generation of secure enterprise and sovereign AI solutions.This is up from the $5.5 billion valuation it landed a little over a year ago when the company had a successful raise, also of $500 million. The Tech company has landed major partnerships with some of the biggest names in enterprise tech, including Oracle, Dell, Bell, Fujitsu, LG’s consulting service CNS, and SAP, as well as some big enterprise names like RBC and a new investor in this round: Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan.

The company also announced the appointment of Francois Chadwick, who will be joining as Chief Financial Officer and Joelle Pineau, currently a Professor at the School of Computer Science at McGill University will be joining as Chief AI Officer

Business, Tech & Market News Shorts: 

• South Africa’s deputy finance minister, David Masondo has indicated that government is planning to raise a R10 billion (ZAR) ($569 million) fund to address infrastructure requirements. The Government will provide 20% of the capital but will seek the bulk of from lenders. The fund is expected to be established by July 2026
• China’s new home prices, across 70 cities dropped by 2.8% year-on-year in July 2025, marking the 25th consecutive month of contraction, This was marginally better than the 3,2% drop in June and the lowest drop since March 2024.
• The Trump administration is reportedly in talks with Intel about the U.S. government potentially taking a stake in the struggling chipmaker, Bloomberg News said. The discussions followed a meeting this week between President Donald Trump and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Share prices jumped by 7% after the news of the talks were circulated.
• Bitcoin has bounced back from a steep drop late yesterday as investors looked for profits after the crypto currency hit a new high of $124 000, the currency dropped as low as $117 000 but has gained momentum again today and is trading around the $119 300 level currently.

Markets by Numbers 

Currencies: 

Currency markets today indicate the US Dollar is currently trading flat against the Euro at 1.16629 and against the Pound at 1.35472 The Yen is currently trading at 147.12 to the dollar. The rand (ZAR)is currently at R17.57 to the US dollar.

Commodities:

• Gold futures prices are currently trading marginally higher this morning, after a drop yesterday, and currently at $3344.45 per ounce.  
• Copper prices are trading lower today, with prices currently at $4.4692
• Silver futures prices are trading flat today, and currently at $38.046
• Platinum futures are nudging slightly higher this morning, and are currently trading at $1352.90 While Palladium prices are marginally higher this morning and currently at $1135
• Brent crude oil prices are currently slightly lower at $66.65, with WTI trading at $63.74 
• Cocoa futures are trading more than 4% lower today, and currently at $8224 per ton. 
• Coffee futures are flat today, and are currently trading at $326.33

Crypto Currencies:

• Bitcoin prices are currently at $118875 after profit taking from investors yesterday.
• Ether prices are currently at $4616.98
• $Trumpcoin is currently more than 5% higher today and trading around $9.16

(All prices quoted at approximately 07H25 Central African Time) 

Other Breaking News in Africa Today

Senegal Seeks Financial Accountability in New Bill

In the ongoing battle to restore financial stability to the country, Senegal’s government has presented an amendment that will expand the 2014 asset declaration law for high-ranking public servants. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has vowed to return financial accountability to the Senegalese government after his predecessor left billions of dollars in hidden debt, however the president himself will be exempt from new transparency law. With the new provision, public prosecutors, investigating judges, local authorities, auditors, and directors of public companies will have to declare their assets at the beginning and end of their tenure.

Previously, the law only applied to senior officials, including the President of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister, ministers, and public accountants handling more than 1 billion CFA francs (€1.5 million). The reporting threshold will also be lowered from 1 billion to 500 million CFA francs (€760,000) for public budget managers if the National Assembly pass the bill on August 18, 2025. However opposition politicians have criticised the proposed bill for leaving President Faye out of the declaration requirements.