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COUNTRY INSIGHTS

The SARB Puts the Interest Rate Hike on Hold
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 19 May 2016

Just as we had predicted, the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) Monetary Policy committee (MPC) paused its hiking of the baseline interest rate at its May 2016 meeting, which was also its third meeting in the current year. This was the first time the SARB did not raise the repurchase (repo) rat...

Unemployment Increases in the First Quarter of 2016
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 10 May 2016

Unemployment increased in the first quarter of 2016 according to the latest labor force survey results released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). Recording 26.7% for the period from January-March 2016, unemployment rose by 2.2 percentage points quarter on quarter (q/q) after it registered 24...

Current Government and Private Investment in the South African Economy
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 29 Apr 2016

​South Africa needs more investment spending than is currently taking place in order for the economy to grow at a rate that is necessary to pull millions of people out of poverty, generate employment opportunities and address the pressing challenge of high income inequality. Of more pressing curr...

South Africa’s Economic Woes Continue into the last quarter of 2015
SOUTH AFRICA · Forecast · 31 Mar 2016

South Africa’s Growth: South Africa’s economic woes continued into the last quarter of 2015, with economic growth slowing down further during this period. What’s more, GDP growth also decelerated for 2015 as whole, placing GDP growth below the 2% growth that had been projected at the beginning of...

SA Constitutional Court Issues Verdict on the President and the Parliament
SOUTH AFRICA · In Brief · 31 Mar 2016

Arguably, today's SA Constitutional Court's (ConCourt) verdict is its most significant judgement in the country's young and evolving constitutional democracy. The verdict deals with an important clarification about the binding, or otherwise, of the country's Public Protector Office findings- one ...

An Interest Rate Hike amidst Low Economic Growth and High Macroeconomic Volatility
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 18 Mar 2016

The South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) decision to increase the repurchase (repo) rate by 25 basis points at its March 2016 meeting, after having raised it by 50 basis points at its previous (and first) meeting of 2016, did not come as a surprise. Although the South African economy is still unde...

Moody's Visiting SA in the Middle of Political Dramas: Downgrade
SOUTH AFRICA · In Brief · 18 Mar 2016

South Africa's sovereign credit rating is under review. The risk is a junk-status downgrade! Earlier this week, the Moody's team arrived in SA in the midst of a huge political drama engulfing the President and some of his corrupt dealings with the Gupta family business-a diversified business grou...

The Current Account Deficit Expands In the Fourth Quarter of 2015, but Contracts Annually
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 08 Mar 2016

The balance of payments figures released by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) show that South Africa’s current account balance shrunk further during the last quarter of 2015 to record a deficit of R208 billion on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, which translates into minus 5.1% of GDP...

Low Growth Continues into the Fourth Quarter of 2015
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 01 Mar 2016

Official growth figures released by Statistics South Africa show that after having increased by a measly 0.7% during the third quarter of 2015, quarter-on-quarter real gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices went up by another paltry amount of 0.6% during the fourth quarter of 2015. Further...

SA Budget Speech 2016: Minister Heralds a Serious Change of Course
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 26 Feb 2016

SA Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, hardly a full two months in the job, stood at the Parliament yesterday to deliver the toughest budget of the post-Apartheid era. His budget speech had one over-arching objective and faced many challenges. The strategic imperative was to ward off the looming pro...

Unemployment Slightly Lower but Still Unimpressive
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 25 Feb 2016

The quarterly labor force survey results released by Statistics South Africa show that unemployment declined by 1.0 percentage point during the last quarter of 2015, resulting in an unemployment rate of 24.5%. See Graph 1. This outcome is the result of the number of unemployed people declining by...

President Zuma’s 2016 State of the Nation Address: Maybe Too Little Too Late
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 12 Feb 2016

President Zuma’s State of Nation Addresses (SONA) during his second term in office have become synonymous with drama, chaos, insults and political entertainment inside and outside the Parliament. His personal conduct in office, his ruling political party’s support for him, and his government’s pe...

The SARB Kicks off the Year by Raising the Repo Rate by 50 basis Points
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 28 Jan 2016

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) opted to increase the repurchase (repo) rate, the country’s benchmark interest rate, by 50 basis points during its first meeting of the year in 2016. This has brought the repo rate up from 6.25% to 6.75% per annum. The i...

The State of South Africa’s Public Finances before the 2016 Budget Speech
SOUTH AFRICA · Report · 27 Jan 2016

Heading towards the 2016 budget speech to be delivered on February 24, the state of South Africa’s national government finances has come under scrutiny because of the myriad of challenges that are currently faced by the country including, but definitely not limited to, low economic growth. On Jan...

South Africa and Three Finance Ministers in Five Days
SOUTH AFRICA · In Brief · 16 Dec 2015

The past week will be remembered in the annals of South Africa's history for the most bizarre, and idiotic, presidential governance decisions in modern times. President Zuma sacked his respected and experienced Finance Minister, Nhlanhla Nene, replaced him with an unknown political entity, David ...

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