TUESDAY, 11.00AM
The production price index plummeted one percentage point to 5,9% in August, from July’s annualised 6,9% and the lowest producer inflation since May 1996, when it was 5,8%.
According to the Central Statistical Service, greatest contributor to August’s producer costs were agricultural products, followed by mining products, minerals and metals.
The CSS said that the PPI for locally produced commodities in August also fell one percentage point from July, to 6,5%, while the annualised rate of change in imported commodities in August hit its lowest level in three years, at 2,8%, mainly due to a 9,1% decrease in the imported price of crude petroleum.
BUSINESS BRIEFS
THREE-YEAR BUDGETS ‘SOON’
FINANCE Director-General Maria Ramos said on Monday her department’s plan to reprioritise government spending by using three-year national Budgets will soon be placed before the Cabinet. Ramos said the new Budget plan, called “medium-term expenditure framework”, will boost government’s growth, employment and redistribution programme, which calls for budgetary and fiscal reform, including a reduction of gross deficit to 3% of GDP.
SLOWDOWN, BUT ‘NO RECESSION’
MONDAY saw more evidence that the economy is slowing, with Stellenbosch University’s Bureau for Economic Research saying its third-quarter business confidence fell, and the Central Statistical Service saying manufacturing output in the three months to August fell 0,7%. However, the BER said: “It remains unlikely that the economy will enter a full-scale recession.
PAY RISES ‘ABOVE INFLATION’
A WAGE settlement survey published by Andrew Levy & Associates on Monday shows that in the nine months to the end of September, workers covered by centralised plant-level bargaining agreements have, on average, received wage increases just above inflation. The average inflation rate over the period was 9,6%, while wages increased by 9,7%.
ZAMBIAN MINES SOLD
THE Zambian government has finalised its sale of the Nchanga and Nkana copper mines to the Kafue Consortium for a cash price of $300-million. The consortium is made up of US company Phelps Dodge, South Africa’s Avmin, Noranda of Canada, and the Commonwealth Development Corporation of Britain. The sale leaves Mufulira mine as the only parastatal Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines mine to remain unsold.