Jemina Capital Report, Market Surveillance

The World Health Organization recently issued a statement that year 2022 might mark the end of the Covid – 19. This is subject to achieving at least 70% of global vaccinations by June 2022. The global vaccination percentage as of date has reached 66 percent, making the target convincingly achievable. UAE having achieved 100% vaccination of the population, whilst Portugal having 94% of the population vaccinated.

In response to this, the United States stopped enforcing the wearing of masks on public transportation, and this was promptly effected by major carriers like American Airlines, United Airlines, and Delta Air Lines.

In several other countries, Covid-19 restrictions, such as PCR tests prior to traveling and mandatory quarantine have been scrapped as the pandemic’s dangers wane considering encouraging vaccination data globally.

The ease in Covid-19 restrictions has been a strong indicator that the pandemic is at its tail end.

This has provided a glimpse of hope for the Tourism Sector, which coincides with the IMF assertions that the sector would be the last to recover after suffering a huge blow in two years.

According to data from the International Civil Aviation Organisation, global air travel passengers declined from 4,6 billion in 2019 to 2,3 billion in 2021, but it is expected to recover to 3,4 billion in 2022.

The recovery in air travel passengers also brings hope to Zimbabwe’s tourism industry which has historically been a major foreign currency earner in the country.

Given the recent continent-wide relaxations of travel restrictions that are already in effect, the occupancy figures in 2022 are likely to inch closer to 2019 sector-wide hotel occupancy levels of 48%, after a huge fall to 38%.

On a week-on-week basis, the ZSE All Share Index garnered 21.7% gains to The bourse has sustained the record-high territory for 14 consecutive sessions as hedge seeking continues to drive demand amid high uncertainty of the rampant exchange rate inflation. Gains in the week under review were spun across all the market's main indices, On the downside, the Real Estate sector performed the worst plunging by -1.4%. Overall year-to-date gains for the ASI stretched up to a whopping 134% as ZSE repositions as the best performing bourse in Africa in real terms (US$), as the local bourse approaches the 3 trillion mark.

Reports