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/ 8 December 2004
A two-day meeting of the South African Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee started in Pretoria on Wednesday morning with two-thirds of economists surveyed seeing no change in the current 7,5% repo rate, but a third expecting a 50 basis-points cut.
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/ 9 November 2004
New York Mercantile Exchange near-dated oil futures price has fallen below $50 per barrel and is currently trading at $49,13 per barrel, meaning that the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) monetary policy committee meeting on December 8 and 9 could once again look at a further interest rate cut.
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/ 5 November 2004
Structural changes that have been implemented over the past decade of freedom will support faster South African economic growth, raising growth from an average of only 1% in the decade prior to April 1994 to an average of 3% in the subsequent decade, with the prospect that growth will average more than 4% in the decade ahead, says Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel.
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/ 4 November 2004
The initial market reaction of a surge in United States equities, a slump in the dollar and a sell-off in the US bond market to President George Bush’s re-election is likely to set the tone for his second four-year term of office. The reaction of US financial markets was reflected in South African financial markets.
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/ 13 October 2004
The two-day meeting of the South African Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee started as scheduled at 9am in Pretoria on Wednesday. The consensus view is that there will be no change in rates due to surging oil prices and economists say the possibility of a rate hike is very remote.
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/ 12 October 2004
The current record high crude oil prices are unsustainable, according to economists surveyed by I-Net Bridge, but a return to last year’s Opec basket of seven crude oils’ average of $28,10 per barrel is also unlikely, mainly because of the depreciation of the dollar against other currencies.
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/ 20 September 2004
China’s Three Gorges Project (TGP) on the Yangtze river will be the world’s largest hydro-electric plant when it is finally completed in 2009 after work started in 1993. Apart from the electricity generated, the TGP has two other main benefits: flood control and a higher carrying capacity for the Yangtze river.
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/ 2 September 2004
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel on Thursday launched the Large Business Centre (LBC), which will cover 9 000 companies with a minimum annual turnover of R250-million. Manuel said that the LBC has been established to make it easier for large companies to comply with the law.
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/ 1 September 2004
The "official rate of interest" used by the tax authorities was cut by 50 basis points to 8,5% with immediate effect, the South African National Treasury said in a media statement on Wednesday. The cut followed the 50 basis-points reduction to 7,5% in the South African Reserve Bank’s repo rate, announced on August 12.
The continued and broad-based weakness of the United States dollar in the international currency markets was one of the major factors that caused the rand to appreciate on a trade-weighted basis by 16% during 2003 and by 9% in the first seven months of 2004, said South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni on Tuesday.