{"id":257187,"date":"2018-07-08T08:50:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-08T06:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=257187"},"modified":"2018-07-08T08:50:14","modified_gmt":"2018-07-08T06:50:14","slug":"ramaphosas-plan-to-tackle-rising-costs-ask-retailers-to-take-the-blow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/257187\/ramaphosas-plan-to-tackle-rising-costs-ask-retailers-to-take-the-blow\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramaphosa’s plan to tackle rising costs: ask retailers to take the blow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the inland price of 95 octane petrol reaching\u00a0R16.02<\/strong><\/a>, the SA government is looking to intervene.<\/p>\n

Petrol has gone from R14.42 in January 2018 to R16.02 in July 2018.<\/p>\n

According to a report by the\u00a0Sunday Times<\/strong><\/a>, the government is now looking to add more products to the\u00a0VAT exemption list, and ask local retailers and producers not to raise their prices as a result.<\/p>\n

“The government will ask food retailers and producers and the transport sector to absorb higher [fuel] prices,” the paper said.<\/p>\n

The combination of the rise in petrol prices, and the recent VAT hike to 15%, has forced companies to raise their prices to absorb the blow \u2013 which leaves consumers paying more for goods at the tills.<\/p>\n

The Sunday Times reported that\u00a0President Cyril Ramaphosa has told his ministers to “create a package of measures” and engage with the business sector to find a way to absorb the fuel hike costs.<\/p>\n

Products which could fall into the VAT-exempt list may also be changed, which includes the possibility of adding more goods to the list, it added.<\/p>\n

The news follows a recent statement from Efficient Group economist Dawie Roodt that the price of petrol\u00a0may increase<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by 25 cents a litre in August 2018.<\/p>\n

“We are now paying more for fuel than ever before in the history of our country and this is going to have a significant impact on the growth of the economy,” said Roodt.<\/p>\n

The Sunday Times report added that an interest rate hike may also be around the corner for South Africans, which will add more pressure.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0New package to combat fuel price and VAT increases will be released in 2 weeks: Ramaphosa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following the inland price of 95 octane petrol reaching\u00a0R16.02, the SA government is looking to intervene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":124983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257189,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257187\/revisions\/257189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}