{"id":60733,"date":"2014-06-18T12:22:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T10:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=60733"},"modified":"2014-06-18T12:22:26","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T10:22:26","slug":"sa-household-spending-slows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/60733\/sa-household-spending-slows\/","title":{"rendered":"SA household spending slows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spending in South Africa expanded at an annualised 2.7% in the first quarter of the year after falling 3.6% in the last three months of 2013 as the pace at which inventories are being run down slowed, the central bank said on Wednesday.<span id=\"midArticle_byline\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>However, household spending slowed, partly due to a rare contraction in spending on non-durable goods such as food and fuel, the bank said in its Quarterly Bulletin for the first three months of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Growth in real final consumption by households also moderated for the eighth time in nine quarters, growing at 1.8% from 2% in Q4, the bank said.<\/p>\n<p>Consumers were hit by slower growth in disposable income, partly because of lost income from a five-month strike in the platinum mines, and rising consumer prices.<\/p>\n<p>The debt-service costs rose but households managed to incur debt at a marginally slower pace than the lacklustre growth of their incomes, keeping the ratio of debt to income at 74.5% in the first quarter, from a revised 74.6% in the last three months of 2013.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of the five-month platinum strike, spending on non-durable goods such as food and fuel declined for the first time since the second quarter of 2009.<\/p>\n<p>South African consumers also lost their appetite for durable goods as consumer confidence and credit extension moderated, but spending on recreational goods continued to increase at a firm pace, the bank said.<\/p>\n<p>Higher spending on recreational and entertainment goods and medicine was more than neutralised by a contraction in consumer outlays on food, beverages and tobacco, and on fuel, with the price of petrol and diesel hitting new highs in the quarter.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on South Africa<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"Global investors show confidence in South Africa\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/59599\/global-investors-show-confidence-in-south-africa\/\"><strong>\u00a0Global investors show confidence in South Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"South Africa\u2019s massive wage gap\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/59173\/south-africas-massive-wage-gap\/\"><strong>South Africa\u2019s massive wage gap<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"South Africa\u2019s economic champion\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/57837\/south-africas-economic-champion\/\"><strong>South Africa\u2019s economic champion<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spending in South Africa expanded at an annualised 2.7% in the first quarter of the year after falling 3.6% in the last three months of 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":48279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,8177],"class_list":["post-60733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-active","tag-central-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60733","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=60733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60737,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60733\/revisions\/60737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}