Nigeria is actually ahead of the game globally in terms of rolling out such identity cards, with identity analyst firm Acuity Market Intelligence forecasting half the world's population will have a chip-based National e-ID card in five years time.
Its most recent forecast is half its original one".
State planners forecast that half the population will be middle class by 2020.
The Italian government cut its 2003 growth forecast in half, but some economists say the figure is still too optimistic.
Catering group Compass added 12p to £11.86 following an upbeat trading update which forecast first half revenue growth of 5.5%.
Despite reducing its consumption forecast by half a million barrels a day, the agency still expects oil demand to grow by 1.2percentthis yearandand 2.3percentt next year.
Nip-pon Mining Holdings, a Japanese copper producer and oil refiner, increased its full-year earnings forecast by half, setting off an 8percentt gain in its share price.
TOKYO — Toyota Motor cut its annual profit forecast by half Friday after destructive floods in Thailand, a crucial manufacturing hub, hurt production in a year already marred by natural and nuclear disasters in Japan.
But it gave George Osborne, Britain's chancellor, something to crow about by lifting Britain's growth forecast by half of a percentage point; in the spring the IMF had raised concerns that Mr Osborne's austerity measures could choke growth.
[C1.] Lexmark Cuts Earnings Forecast in Half Lexmark International signaled that it was losing the price war in inkjet printers when it said that its earnings for the third quarter would be half of what it had predicted.
