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Naira depreciates by 40% against Dollar in First half of 2024

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Naira Depreciation Against the Dollar

40% Depreciation: The Naira depreciated by 40% against the US Dollar in the first half of 2024, with a significant decline in value

Unstable Forex Market:  The Naira’s instability in the foreign exchange market has been attributed to various factors, including the Central Bank of Nigeria’s policies and the country’s economic situation

Fluctuations: The Naira’s value has fluctuated significantly, reaching its highest point of ₦1,665.50 in February 2024 and its lowest point of ₦1,230.61 in April 2024

Worst-Performing Currency: The Naira has been identified as the worst-performing currency in the first half of 2024, according to Bloomberg

Impact of Central Bank Policies: The Central Bank of Nigeria’s policies, including the unification of the FX market and regulations on International Money Transfer Operators, have had a significant impact on the Naira’s value

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Air Peace set to resume flight operations

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Air Peace
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Air Peace says it will resume flight operations on Friday following the suspension of strike by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NiMeT, workers.

This was contained in a statement by the airline’s Head of Corporate Communications, Ejike Ndiulo, on Thursday night in Lagos.

Ndiulo expressed Air Peace’s gratitude to its customers and the general public  for patience, understanding and  support throughout the period of the strike.

”Your resilience and trust in our brand mean the world to us.

“We commend the active and decisive intervention of the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo (SAN), whose leadership and commitment were pivotal in resolving the impasse and restoring normalcy within the aviation industry,” Ndiulo said.

He noted the minister’s swift engagement with aviation stakeholders, his transparent approach and his dedication to the stability and progress of the aviation sector.

Head of Corporate Communications further stated that Keyamo’s efforts not only facilitated timely resolution of the industrial dispute but also underscored his broader vision for a safer, more efficient and investor-friendly Nigerian aviation industry.

Ndiulo said Air Peace was committed to providing safe, reliable and world-class services.

Ekwutosblog reports that NiMeT workers on Thursday suspended the strike which began on April 22 after the minister’s intervention.

 

The workers downed tools in protest of alleged poor working conditions, including non-implementation of the 2019 Consequential Adjustment to the National Minimum Wage (affecting at least 30  staff).

They are also demanding a 25/35 per cent salary increase, 40 per cent hardship/peculiar allowance, and  annual staff trainings.

The minister had promised to find lasting solutions to the problems.

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Aussie boss’s $2,000 mistake after using AI to write a work email

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A cleaning company director lost out on over $2,000 after an AI tool to write emails (stock)
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  • A cleaning company director introduced an AI tool to help write work emails
  • Employees used the tool to try and shorten customer response time 

A Melbourne cleaning company director has lost out on thousands of dollars after using artificial intelligence to help write a series of emails.

The business boss had hoped to improve his firm’s productivity, but one mistake alone cost it more than $2000 when he failed to pick up on the blunder.

End of Lease Cleaning Melbourne director Michael had introduced a generative AI tool to speed up the time it would take for his team to respond to customer emails.

Rather than have employees type out individual lists of cleaning services, they would input information such as the type of service required and let the tool do the rest.

The AI-powered tool would then generate an email that included the services, their costs and a job quote for each customer.

But the tool produced several emails with mistakes which were not picked up by the cleaning company’s employees.

‘We lost quite a lot of money,’ Michael told 9news.au.

The AI tool mistakenly listed different services to the ones required without changing the quotes to reflect the higher prices.

A cleaning company director lost out on over $2,000 after an AI tool to write emails (stock)

 

Michael and his team were forced to provide full wall cleans, priced between $500 to $700 for the price of a spot wall clean which is significantly lower.

The company’s most-costly mistake involved the director using the AI tool to generate a quote for property that required a deep clean worth around $2,000.

Michael read over the generated email but failed to spot several mistakes within the correspondence.

He didn’t spot the errors until a week later, by which time it was too late to correct them as the customer had signed up to a different company.

After the $2,000 mistake, End of Lease Cleaning Melbourne’s employees no longer use AI for business correspondence.

The response time for returning customers’ emails has now returned to five hours, the time it had previously taken prior to introducing the AI tool.

‘If you are using AI, you definitely need to read everything two to three times before you send that email,’ he added.

Almost half of all Australians use generative AI, according to a survey Google conducted with IPSOS in January.

According to a survey, around 65 percent of Australian workers said their employer had introduced AI in the workplace (stock)

 

Out of that 50 percent, almost 75 percent of those report using it for work.

In a separate survey carried out by HR platform Workday, around 65 percent of Australian workers stated their employer had introduced AI in the workplace.

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Resolve trade tensions inimical to global economic growth – IMF tells countries

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The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, on Thursday urged countries to swiftly resolve trade disputes that threaten global economic growth.

Georgieva said the unpredictability arising from President Donald Trump’s aggressive campaign of taxes on foreign imports was causing companies to delay investments and consumers to hold off on spending.

She made the call while addressing reporters in a briefing during the spring meetings of the IMF and its sister agency, the World Bank.

“Uncertainty is bad for business,’’ she said.

Georgieva’s comments came two days after the IMF downgraded the outlook for world economic growth this year.

The 191-country lending organisations which seek to promote global growth, financial stability and to reduce poverty, also sharply lowered its forecast for the United States.

It said the chances that the world’s biggest economy would fall into recession have risen from 25 per cent, to about 40 per cent.

Georgieva warned that the economic fallout from the trade conflict would fall most heavily on poor countries, which do not have the money to offset the damage.

Trump, since his second return to the White House on January 20, has aggressively imposed tariffs on American trading partners.

Among other things, he slapped 145 per cent import taxes on China and 10 per cent on almost every country in the world, raising U.S. tariffs to levels not seen in more than a century.

He has, however, repeatedly changed US policy, suddenly suspending or altering the tariffs.

This has reportedly left companies bewildered about what he is trying to accomplish and what his endgame might be.

Trump’s tariffs culminated in a sharp reversal of decades of U.S. policy in favour of free trade and the resulting uncertainty around them have caused a week-long rout in financial markets.

But stocks rallied Wednesday, after the Trump administration signaled that it was open to reducing the massive tariffs on China.

“There is an opportunity for a big deal here,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday.

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