{"id":259299,"date":"2018-07-18T13:58:09","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T11:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=259299"},"modified":"2018-07-18T13:58:09","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T11:58:09","slug":"the-state-of-south-africas-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/259299\/the-state-of-south-africas-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"The state of South Africa’s economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

South African consumer prices accelerated at a slower pace than economists\u2019 expectations in June, cementing the case for the central bank to hold its benchmark rate Thursday.<\/p>\n

The annual inflation rate was 4.6% compared with 4.4% in May, Pretoria-based Statistics South Africa said in a statement Wednesday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey was 4.8%.<\/p>\n

The rand had its worst month in more than two years in June as the US and China exchanged tariff blows at a time when the prospect of rising American rates also weighed on emerging-market assets.<\/p>\n

The weaker currency and higher oil prices added upside risks to inflation in Africa\u2019s most-industrialized economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe SARB isn\u2019t going to be in a rush to raise rates,\u201d Jeffrey Schultz, an economist at BNP Paribas South Africa in Johannesburg, said by phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had five months where headline inflation has undershot expectations, and this is likely to neutralize some of the hawkish tones from the central bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rate has exceeded the midpoint of the central bank\u2019s target range of 3% to 6% for the first time since December. The Monetary Policy Committee has made it clear that it also prefers to see expectations for future inflation close to 4.5%.<\/p>\n

Rate Bets<\/strong><\/p>\n

The bank is likely to hold the benchmark rate at 6.5% on Thursday, according to all 15 economists in a Bloomberg survey.<\/p>\n

Forward-rate agreements starting in December, after the last MPC meeting of the year, dropped two basis points to 7.09% at 1:35 p.m. in Johannesburg as traders cut bets on a rate increase.<\/p>\n

Core inflation, which excludes the price of food, non-alcoholic beverages, energy and gasoline, was 4.2% in June, the statistics agency said. Transport costs climbed 7.3% in June from a year earlier, the biggest increase since March 2017.<\/p>\n

Retail sales increased 1.9% in May from a year earlier, the agency said. That\u2019s the second-slowest pace of gains since July 2017.<\/p>\n

The economy contracted the most in nine years in the first quarter and the weak output may discourage the central bank from embarking on hikes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Read: It\u2019s going to become harder to save money in South Africa: analyst<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African consumer prices accelerated at a slower pace than economists\u2019 expectations in June, cementing the case for the central bank to hold its benchmark rate Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":118672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259299","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\/259299","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259305,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259299\/revisions\/259305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}