Kwacha appreciation cheers Bata

BATAMR SICHONE

“We have seen an improvement in sales all round from March and this trend continued until the covid19 third wave kicked in changing everything we had gained,”

Shoe Company is confident that the appreciation of the local currency will be sustained thereby bringing stability in its product pricing.

The Kwacha is currently trading at K16.3523 per United States Dollar.

The challenge in sourcing was because of the issue of the local currency exchange rate which had continued to depreciate in value resulting in shoes being much more expensive than they should actually be, according to the Company Secretary, Mr Esiyasi Sichone.

“The local currency kwacha continued to depreciate (seven percent) from K21.1958 / USD in January 2021 closing at K22.6632/US$ for the period under review,” Mr Sichone said in the unaudited financial results for the first half of this year ended June 2021.

He also stated that business in the first half of the year had been reasonably good given the prevailing situation in the country.

Mr Sichone indicated that the outlook for the second half of 2022 remained positive for the company as it continued implementing measures that had enabled us to effectively operate in the Covid-19 environment.

He however stated that the first hurdle for the company was in January when the opening of schools was postponed.

“Normally the January Back to School is the biggest in the year. This obviously had a negative effect on our business. When schools finally opened, the sales were not as expected, although we managed to recover some of the lost business

“We have seen an improvement in sales all round from March and this trend continued until the covid19 third wave kicked in changing everything we had gained,” Mr Sichone said.

He reiterated that the impact of Covid-19 had been greatly felt in the procurement of required merchandise to sustain the stocks.