South African businesses have their heads buried in the sand and do not wish to acknowledge what the concept of "transformation" means for their operations, independent economist Nico Czypionka told a breakfast meeting of the Italian-South African Chamber of Trade and Industries on Tuesday.
The province of KwaZulu-Natal is considering introducing tourism police to make sure that each visitor to KwaZulu-Natal has a safe and crime-free visit, newly appointed KwaZulu-Natal provincial minister for arts, culture and tourism Narend Singh told delegates at the 2004 Tourism Indaba in Durban.
Newly appointed South African Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk opened the 2004 Tourism Indaba in Durban on Saturday in his first official act since being appointed minister. Indaba visitor applications have increased to more than 3Â 500 visitors from 93 countries.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66098">KwaZulu-Natal mulling tourism police</a>
The recent change in the global economy away from an extremely stimulatory monetary policy will weaken the rand, but this does not imply a collapse in the rand, head of market and economic research at Investment Solutions Martin Jankelowitz said in his latest economic commentary.
The South African Reserve Bank’s eight-member monetary policy committee (MPC) will be hearing expert testimony on Wednesday and Thursday on a variety of issues. Most of the attention will be focused on the projections for the course of inflation over the next few months.
Although no economists forecast a change in interest rates when the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) monetary policy committee (MPC) meets next week, this does not necessarily mean that the MPC may not raise the repo rate by a cautionary 25 basis points.
South African new vehicle sales in March 2004 registered the highest year-on-year (y/y) increase at 28,5% since September 1995, when it was 87,9% y/y after strikes in the third quarter of 1994. Figures released by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa on Friday show a massive rise to 38 891 units.
South Africa’s fourth-quarter 2003 current account deficit, which at R5,857-billion was the largest since the record quarterly deficit of R7,048-billion in the third quarter of 1998, may in fact be close to zero, as the deficit is less than a third of the R17,299-billion of the net inflow of foreign unrecorded foreign transactions.
The large 17,5% year-on-year drop in the number of people employed in the formal building industry in September 2003 highlighted the problem South African statistical authorities have in collecting credible employment data given the increase in casualisation in jobs, which is a global phenomenon.
During December 2003, 192 625 overseas travellers visited South Africa, a 0,9% year-on-year increase, Statistics South Africa said on Thursday. The total number of travellers who arrived in South Africa from mainland Africa during December 2003 was 430 734, which was a 3,8% decrease.