South African factory sentiment edged deeper into contractionary territory in February, declining for a fifth month amid concern about global trade, a US spat with Pretoria and the return of power cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Absa Group Ltd.\u2019s Purchasing Managers\u2019 Index, compiled by the Bureau for Economic Research, fell to 44.7 from 45.3 in January, the Johannesburg-based lender said Monday in an emailed statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The median of three economists\u2019 estimates in a Bloomberg survey was 45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Confidence weakened as measures of business activity, new sales, and the employment index declined, signalling the factory sector remains subdued after a weak performance at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A gauge of expected business conditions in six months also fell \u201cas uncertainties around global trade, SA-US relations, and the return of load-shedding weighed on sentiment,\u201d Absa said, referring to the South African term for scheduled power cuts that were reinstated for several days in February after a 10-month break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US president has roiled global trade by threatening a raft of tariffs. He\u2019s also frozen assistance to South Africa over false claims it was confiscating land. The South African authorities haven\u2019t seized any private land since the end of apartheid in 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The business activity gauge fell to 40.6 from 43.5 in January, new sales orders declined to 38.7 from 42, the employment index was at 42.2 from 44.4 and the index tracking expected business conditions in six months\u2019 time fell to 60.5 in February from 64.9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The overall PMI peaked at 53.3 in September amid optimism over the post-election formation of a new business-friendly governing coalition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s declined every month since then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa’s Purchasing Manager’s Index took a knock as tensions between Washington and Pretoria escalated and load shedding reared its ugly head once more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":801277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[29,10849,1165,17723],"class_list":["post-814968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-absa","tag-donald-trump","tag-load-shedding","tag-pmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814968","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=814968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814970,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814968\/revisions\/814970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}