{"id":348296,"date":"2019-10-23T12:42:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T10:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=348296"},"modified":"2019-10-23T13:09:13","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T11:09:13","slug":"5-things-that-have-become-a-lot-more-expensive-in-south-africa-in-the-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/348296\/5-things-that-have-become-a-lot-more-expensive-in-south-africa-in-the-last-year\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things that have become a lot more expensive in South Africa in the last year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Statistics South Africa has published its latest CPI data showing that annual consumer inflation slowed in September – falling to 4.1% from 4.3% recorded in August.<\/p>\n

The Stats body noted that the inflation rate has hovered between 4% and 5% since December last year and has been below 4,5% for the past three months.<\/p>\n

More significantly, it has remained below the South African Reserve Bank\u2019s (SARB) 6% monetary policy ceiling since April 2017.<\/p>\n

“The product groups that carry the largest weight in the inflation basket \u2013 such as food and non-alcoholic beverages, housing and transport \u2013 have had the most influence in keeping the headline rate at modest levels.<\/p>\n

“Together, these three categories make up over half of the basket and all three recorded an annual increase below 5% in September,” it said.<\/p>\n

Stats SA said the product groups that had the highest annual price increases in September were electricity and university boarding fees.<\/p>\n

In terms of electricity, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) sets electricity prices and tariffs while taking a range of factors into account.<\/p>\n

Electricity supply in recent years has also been characterised by increasing costs in an environment of low economic growth, contributing to the rise in prices.<\/p>\n

Prices for tertiary education accommodation have also increased in recent times, mainly due to a rise in demand, Stats SA said.<\/p>\n

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

The other major increases were seen in wine, medical insurance and bread and cereals.<\/p>\n

Wine prices have been climbing steadily since the 2016 drought. In particular, the 2019 harvest is the lowest since 2005 and strong export demand further limits local availability.<\/p>\n

Bread and cereal prices have increased significantly in the past 12 months due to poor harvests.<\/p>\n

Within this product group, super maize prices increased 15.7% year-on-year in September, and special maize by 31.3%. Brown bread prices were up by 7.6%, Stats SA said.<\/p>\n

The product groups that had the largest negative annual rates were telecommunications equipment and package holidays.<\/p>\n

“The sharp deflation in telecommunications equipment \u2013which consists mainly of cellphones \u2013 stems from the fact that the CPI is a constant quality index,” Stats SA said.<\/p>\n

“In simple terms, this means that the improvement in phone features outstrips any price increases introduced when new models are released.”<\/p>\n

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Read: South Africa\u2019s inflation rate declines to lowest since 2011<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Statistics South Africa has published its latest CPI data showing that annual consumer inflation slowed in September – falling to 4.1% from 4.3% recorded in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":89390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26,1809],"class_list":["post-348296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348296","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=348296"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348339,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348296\/revisions\/348339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}