{"id":645483,"date":"2022-11-23T11:07:29","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T09:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=645483"},"modified":"2022-11-23T11:07:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T09:07:29","slug":"inflation-shock-for-south-africa-and-its-bad-news-for-meat-lovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/645483\/inflation-shock-for-south-africa-and-its-bad-news-for-meat-lovers\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflation shock for South Africa – and it’s bad news for meat lovers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inflation in South Africa edged upward in October, countering economist and analyst expectations of prices coming down for the month.<\/p>\n

With inflation tracking higher, this dampens hopes that the country would make a speedier return to the South African Reserve Bank’s target range of 3% to 6%, and cements projections of a sizeable interest rate hike on Thursday (24 November).<\/p>\n

According to Stats SA, headline consumer price inflation (CPI) was recorded at 7.6% in October 2022, up marginally from 7.5% in September.<\/p>\n

The main contributors to the 7.6% annual inflation rate were food and non-alcoholic beverages; housing and utilities; transport; and miscellaneous goods and services.<\/p>\n

Food and non-alcoholic beverages increased by 12.0% year-on-year, and contributed 2.1 percentage points to the total CPI annual rate of 7.6%.<\/p>\n

Housing and utilities increased by 4.3% year-on-year, and contributed 1.1 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Transport increased by 17.1% year-on-year, and contributed 2.4 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Miscellaneous goods and services increased by 4.8% year-on-year, and contributed 0.7 of a percentage point.<\/p>\n

In October, the annual inflation rate for goods was 10.5%, down from 10.7% in September; and for services, it was 4.6%, up from 4.3% in September, Stats SA said.<\/p>\n

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

Food prices climb ever higher<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stats SA noted that bread & cereals, meat and dairy are currently driving food prices higher in South Africa.<\/p>\n

The bread and cereals category continues to witness high levels of inflation, with the annual rate increasing to 19.5% from 19.3% in September. Large monthly price increases were recorded for sweet biscuits (5.5%), macaroni (3.1%) and maize meal (1.7%).<\/p>\n

Annual meat inflation also quickened in October, rising to 10.5%<\/strong> from 9.9% in September. Beef prices registered large monthly increases, most notably steak (2.5%), stewing beef (1.2%) and mince (1.1%).<\/p>\n

The dairy index (milk, eggs & cheese) registered an annual increase of 10.5%, the highest rate since February 2017 (10.7%). Products recording significant monthly increases include long-life full-cream milk (3.5%), fresh full-cream milk (1.8%) and cheddar cheese (1.2%).<\/p>\n

Hot beverage prices increased by 14.0% in the twelve months to October, the highest annual reading since February 2017 (14.3%). Instant coffee recorded a monthly increase of 2.1% and black (Ceylon) tea 3.4%.<\/p>\n

Oils & fat products, which drove food inflation higher for many months, bucked the trend in October. The category recorded a second consecutive month of disinflation, with prices falling by 1.0% after a decrease of 6.1% in September. This took the annual rate to 25.7% from 29.0% in September.<\/p>\n

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

On a more positive note, fuel inflation continues to decline, the stats body said.<\/p>\n

The annual change for the transport index was 17.1%, softer than September\u2019s reading of 17.9%.<\/p>\n

Annual vehicle inflation climbed to 6.1% from 5.8% in September on the back of higher used vehicle prices. Used vehicles are, on average, 14.5% more expensive than a year ago, representing the highest annual rate since the current CPI series began in 2009.<\/p>\n

Lower petrol prices saw the fuel index decline for a third consecutive month. This took the annual rate for fuel to 30.1% in October from 34.1% in September, decreasing further from the 56.2% peak recorded in July.<\/p>\n

A litre of unleaded 95-octane petrol (inland) was R22.36 in October, lower than the record high of R26.74 in July.<\/p>\n

Other notable price changes in October include household detergents, which continued to increase, with washing powder reaching an annual rate of 30.3% and dishwashing liquid 16.2%.<\/p>\n

Bath soap prices increased by 21.3% and toothpaste prices by 20.8% in the twelve months to October.<\/p>\n

Health insurance premiums increased by 4.8% in October 2022 compared with October 2021, higher than the annual reading of 3.5% recorded in September.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Big changes coming for South Africa\u2019s inflation basket<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Economists and analysts expected inflation to come down in October – but things have gone the other way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":645493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[2829,26],"class_list":["post-645483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-cpi","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645483","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=645483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645495,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645483\/revisions\/645495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}