{"id":258279,"date":"2018-07-13T08:10:11","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T06:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=258279"},"modified":"2018-07-13T10:04:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T08:04:27","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-345","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/258279\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-345\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/africaTech\/idAFL8N1U85WC\">Saudi Arabia has committed to investing over R130 billion in South Africa<\/a><\/strong>, particularly in the energy sector, the presidency announced this week. This is 10% of the $100 billion in foreign investment that president Ramaphosa is trying to draw to South Africa. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Economy\/vat-hike-constitutionally-suspect-sa-human-rights-commission-20180712\">The decision to hike VAT to 15% has been deemed &#8216;constitutionally suspect&#8217; by the South African Human Rights Commission<\/a><\/strong>. The Commission described the higher VAT as a regressive tax, and criticised government&#8217;s decision to go that route, considering its impact on poorer households. [News24]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/07\/13\/will-eskom-afford-to-pay-over-7-salary-increases-for-2018\">Energy experts say that Eskom will likely have to reduce staff numbers to balance out wage increases.<\/a><\/strong> Eskom has reportedly moved its wage offer higher than 7%, but no public number has yet been stated. Unions have been demanding 8% in 2018, and 8.5% for the next two years. Eskom initially said it could afford a 0% increase. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/companies\/steinhoff-rallies-after-preference-dividend-is-declared-15988118\">Scandal-hit Steinhoff rallied over 30% on Thursday after the group announced a clear path to restructuring its debt.<\/a><\/strong> While the rally was considered steep, it is off a low base. The share ended the day at R2.88 &#8211; which is still over 95% off from where it stood before the crash. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand regained as much as 2% on Thursday after an easing in the sell-off on emerging markets stemming from fears of a trade war between the United States and China. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was trading at R13.27 to the dollar, R17.48 to the pound and R15.47 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia commits to investing $10 billion in South Africa; the constitutionality of hiking VAT to 15% is being questioned; Eskom may have to cut jobs to afford 7%+ wage hikes; Steinhoff&#8217;s share price jumped 30% &#8211; but off a very low base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":205318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258279","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258285,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258279\/revisions\/258285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}