{"id":848469,"date":"2026-01-21T11:25:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T09:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=848469"},"modified":"2026-01-21T11:26:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T09:26:04","slug":"best-news-in-21-years-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/848469\/best-news-in-21-years-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Best news in 21 years for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s inflation rate dipped to a 21-year low of 3.2% on average in 2025, with prices across the nation broadly in line with the new inflation target rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumer price inflation ticked marginally higher in December to end the year at 3.6%, up from 3.5% in November, with the month-on-month change in the consumer price index (CPI) at 0.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA said that the average inflation rate for 2025 was 3.2%, which is the lowest rate since 2004’s 1.4%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next most recent year in which average inflation was lower than 3.2% was 1969 (3.0%), 56 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana recently announced a new inflation target of 3% following calls from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), with inflation broadly in line with this figure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the specifics of the December figure, the annual rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages (NAB) remained stable at 4.4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meat inflation, however, continued its upward trajectory, rising 12.6% in December from 12.2% in November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The rate was -0.4% in December 2024, which shows how quickly meat inflation has accelerated over the year,” said Stats SA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beef inflation remains at high levels amid a major foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. For instance, beef steak recorded an annual price change of 29.4% in December. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inflation for cereal products rose from 1.7% in November to 2.1% in December, with several key items experiencing faster price increases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes brown bread (accelerating from 0.5% to 1.0%), white bread (1.3% to 1.7%) and spaghetti (1.7% to 3.1%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inflation for maize meal declined for a second straight month, slowing to 9.5% in December from 9.9% in November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The milk, other dairy products & eggs category remained in deflationary territory at -1.1%, which was primarily led by cheaper milk products. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheese, however, bucked the trend, with cheddar prices rising by 9.0% in the 12 months to December, higher than the 4.9% rise recorded in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual rate for oil & fats slowed to 4.6%, with sunflower oil softening to 6.2% from November\u2019s 6.6%. Olive oil is also 8.0% cheaper than it was a year ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prices for non-alcoholic beverages rose by 4.2% in the year to December, which was higher than November\u2019s rate of 3,7%. Inflation for cold beverages increased from 1.4% in November to 2.2% in December.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Higher rents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA also conducted its quarterly survey of housing rents in December, with actual rentals increasing by 0.8% in Q4 2025 compared to Q3. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual change for actual rentals was 3.7%, with townhouses rising by 4.6%, flats by 4.2% and houses by 3.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Domestic workers saw their pay increase by 3.8% annually in December, but this was lower than the 4.1% rise recorded at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuel prices also rose by 0.6% in the final year to December. Diesel was up by 3.7% and petrol by 0.1%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fares for long-distance buses rose by 38.6% between November and December, but this sharp increase is due to the rise in festive-season travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this monthly increase, bus prices were 5.6% lower this December than in December 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Inflation has hit its best level since 2004 despite meat prices recording massive rises in December. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":700863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1809],"class_list":["post-848469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848469","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=848469"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":848480,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848469\/revisions\/848480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}