South African bonds opened stronger in quiet early trade on Monday on the back of a firmer rand after South Africa on Saturday won the right to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup. At 9am the benchmark six-year R153 bond was at 10,100% from 10,140% at Friday’s close, 10,24% at Thursday’s close, 10,120% at Wednesday’s close and 10,09% at Tuesday’s close.
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 (SARB) monetary policy committee (MPC) decided on Thursday at the end of a two-day meeting — the second of the year — to leave the repo rate unchanged at 8%. This means the prime interest rate is to remain steady at 11,5%. "The MPC will continue to monitor all the risk factors to the inflation outlook," SARB Governor Tito Mboweni said.
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.
During January 2004, 168 897 overseas travellers visited South Africa, a 0,8% y/y decrease, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Thursday. This compared with 192 625 overseas travellers in December 2003.
South African house prices increased to a record nominal increase of 22,7% y/y in March 2004 from 22,4% y/y in February 2004 and 21,7% y/y in January 2004, according to South African commercial bank Absa’s monthly House Price Index released on Wednesday.
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.
The Merrill Lynch survey of South African fund managers in March saw managers turn net sellers of equities for the first time since 1998, but over 12 months, managers remain equity bulls and cash and bond bears. In March 2003, all managers thought equities offered value, but a year later only a net 14% think so.
About 30 African finance ministers who held an inaugural meeting on March 12 on "Voice and Participation of Developing and Transition Countries in the Bretton Woods Institutions" said on Monday in a communiqué that an African deputy MD should be considered for the International Monetary Fund.
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.
Central banks prefer stability to almost any other quality and many have made either price or financial market stability their official policy. The elimination of South Africa’s forward book removes a historic source of vulnerability for the rand and will now allow the SARB to build its gross foreign reserves.
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/ 26 February 2004
A recent working paper by Eric Parrado of the International Monetary Fund’s monetary and financial systems department argues that flexible inflation targeting, which takes into account inflation as well as output, is superior to strict inflation targeting, where meeting the inflation target is the unique objective.
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/ 18 February 2004
South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday that he was once given a T-shirt by an NGO that carried the slogan "Debt sucks", and this was a sentiment that he shared. "What is good for the individual should be good for the state and that sentiment has informed our budgetary process over the past decade," he said.
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/ 17 February 2004
The 2004/5 Budget to be presented on February 18 will not be an "election" budget, in that it will provide goodies to voters, but it will nevertheless be expansionary, Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt told a media briefing late last week.
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/ 16 February 2004
The 2004/5 Budget to be presented on February 18 could provide a positive surprise to the South African capital market, Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt said on Monday. "I believe the minister of finance will reduce the call on the domestic capital market, so as to keep long-term yields in single digits," he said.
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/ 16 February 2004
Although most economists expect few surprises from the 2004/5 Budget to be presented on February 18 at 14h00 by the Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, his sobriquet — "Clever Trevor" — means that the budget could still surprise.
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/ 6 February 2004
The privatisation of South African state-owned enterprises (SOE) seems to have stalled, which, given independent research consultancy BusinessMap Foundation’s 2002 annual review title of <i>A Sense of Movement</i>, is very ironic. BusinessMap’s 2003 review is titled <i>A Change of Pace</i>.
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/ 5 February 2004
A virile South African rand on Wednesday shrugged off the news that the government had repaid almost R5-billion in January as it repaid $750-million six months ahead of its scheduled redemption on July 30 2004. This followed the July 2003 redemption of $750-million, which had been the first early redemption of a foreign loan.
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/ 2 February 2004
Central banks are very powerful determinants of interest rates and exchange rates. It has therefore been very disconcerting to financial market participants that the norm since December 2003 has been for central banks to spring surprises. The first major central bank to surprise the markets was the South African Reserve Bank.
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/ 2 February 2004
The South African province of the North West was the worst offender in spending or alternatively keeping track of its capital spending of South Africa’s nine provinces. In the first nine months of the fiscal year, the North West housing department spent only 2,6% of its capital expenditure allocation of R390-million.
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/ 28 January 2004
The South African economy will focus and have its course determined by "the three Rs", Standard Corporate and Merchant Bank managing director Ben Kruger said on Tuesday. "The three Rs in this case are not the ones you learnt at primary school, but are races, rates and the rand," he said.
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/ 26 January 2004
With just 23 days to go before he delivers his eighth Budget speech on February 18, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Monday once again called on his fellow citizens to give him tips on how to tailor the Budget to better reflect their priorities.
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/ 19 January 2004
The rand’s near-18% move between a best level of R6,2348 a dollar on January 6 and R7,5750 on January 16 makes it unlikely that the rand’s volatility this year will be less than 30%, but the very stable year of 1999 started equally poorly, as the rand traded between R5,665 and R6,31 in January 1999.
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/ 16 January 2004
The trade-weighted rand has lost 13% in a week to reach its worst level since June 2003. Its level on Friday, which was determined at 1030 local time, was 50,11, its weakest level since June 20 2003. The last time it was below 50 was on June 12 2003, when the index was at 49,98.
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/ 12 January 2004
South African house prices slowed somewhat to a nominal increase of 19% year-on-year (y/y) in December 2003 from 19,6% y/y in November, according to South African commercial bank Absa’s monthly house price index (HPI) released on Monday. The recent highest nominal y/y increase was 20,9% in May 2003.
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/ 10 December 2003
The strength of the rand warrants a further rate cut, Metropolitan Asset Manager’s economist Rejane Woodroffe said in her latest economic overview. "The sustained strength of the rand has continued to surprise … and paves the way for a further interest rate cut at this year’s final monetary policy committee meeting," she said.
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/ 9 December 2003
The rand’s recent strength has left it "overstretched", Merrill Lynch South African economist Nazmeera Moola said in the firm’s latest overview of the South African economy. "On a short-term basis, we see room for mild rand weakness … a rand at R6,65 per dollar in the next six weeks is very possible," Moola said.