{"id":785194,"date":"2024-08-01T13:29:28","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T11:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=785194"},"modified":"2024-08-01T13:29:32","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T11:29:32","slug":"step-in-the-right-direction-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/785194\/step-in-the-right-direction-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Step in the right direction for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South African manufacturers have been boosted by an increase in business activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seasonally adjusted Absa Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) increased by 6.7 points to 52.4 in July 2024, up from 45.7 in June. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PMI is an economic activity index based on a survey by the Bureau for Economic Research (BER). A value of 50 indicates no change in activity, a value above 50 indicates increased activity and a value below 50 indicates decreased activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This reflects a solid start to the third quarter following a weak May and June,” said the BER.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The survey showed that both domestic and global demand has picked up, leading to higher activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business activity index increased by 14.5 points to 50.8 in July, supported by new sales orders rising by a solid 17.5 points to 55.4 – the first time that the indices were in positive territory in three months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May and June, significant policy uncertainty remained and hurt demand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The improvements could mean that on-hold orders are now being realised and translated into better activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, export sales increased substantially in July following four consecutive months of declines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, the inverted supplier deliveries are worsening (delays in delivery times), with the index measuring suppliers’ performance increasing from 56.1 in June to 61.9 in July. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This may indicate that suppliers are not coping with handling the increases in demand following months of slower activity,” said the BER. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, worryingly, the uptick in production has not helped the employment index, which declined slightly from 46.3 in June to 45.4 in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investec Economist Lara Hodes said that a sustainable lift in business confidence and growth is needed to rectify South Africa\u2019s unemployment predicament. South Africa’s official unemployment rate is currently at 32.9% <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inverted purchasing price index continued to bring good news, dropping for the fourth straight month from 64.5 points in June to 63.1 points in July. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This was the lowest in seven months and indicative of the continued easing of cost pressures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Petrol prices fell by about R1\/litre, with a smaller decline in diesel at the start of July, alleviating pressure on costs.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the index tracking expected business conditions in six months increased from 68.1 points in June to 69.4 points in July. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the most optimistic that respondents have been about their business conditions since early 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
Index<\/strong><\/td>May <\/strong><\/td>June<\/strong><\/td>July<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Business activity<\/td>38.1<\/td>36.3<\/mark><\/td>50.8<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
New sales orders<\/td>37.8<\/td>37.9<\/mark><\/td>55.4<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
Employment<\/td>43.5<\/td>46.3<\/mark><\/td>45.4<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
Inventories<\/td>44.5<\/td>51.9<\/mark><\/td>48.5<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
Supplier deliveries*<\/td>55.4<\/td>56.1<\/mark><\/td>61.9<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
Purchasing prices*<\/td>66.9<\/td>64.5<\/mark><\/td>63.1<\/mark><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>
*Inverted<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Read<\/strong>: Digital driving and car licences for South Africa \u2013 and the one thing standing in the way<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s manufacturing sector is showing signs of life after a tough end to the second quarter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":703383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[29,14829,26,1498,17723],"class_list":["post-785194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-absa","tag-ber","tag-headline","tag-investec","tag-pmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785194","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785194"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":785202,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785194\/revisions\/785202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}