No image available
/ 5 December 2003
South African provincial tender boards are to be phased out as part of a wide-ranging revamp of the government’s supply-chain management, the National Treasury said on Friday. The National Treasury is in the process of issuing practice notes, which deal with specific issues relating to supply-chain management.
No image available
/ 4 December 2003
The South African Department of Communications (DOC) on Wednesday published a draft Convergence Bill for comment by industry players and the public within 60 days. Once the comments have been incorporated within a revised Bill, it will be presented to cabinet for approval in March 2004.
No image available
/ 3 December 2003
The port of Durban is the first African port to have a United States customs post as part of the Container Security Initiative (CSI), the US embassy in Pretoria said on Wednesday. Durban is only the 17th port to be CSI compliant since the CSI was proposed in January 2002 in the wake of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks.
No image available
/ 2 December 2003
Price stability remains a core objective, South African Reserve Bank (SARB) governor Tito Mboweni said in a speech at the annual heads of foreign missions dinner on Monday evening. "However, the South African economy will always be affected considerably by developments in the rest of the world," he said.
No image available
/ 1 December 2003
The 32,6% year-on-year (y/y) rise in value-added tax (VAT) collections to R7,528-billion in October points to a buoyant South African economy, as VAT is a very good indicator of general economic activity. This is because VAT is levied throughout the production and distribution chain.
No image available
/ 26 November 2003
The South African Revenue Service (Sars) will lower the interest rate it charges on outstanding taxes, duties and levies as from December 1 2003. This rate is equal to the rate determined by the minister of finance in terms of the Public Finance Management Act of 1999.
No image available
/ 25 November 2003
Adding his voice to the chorus of economists and business people calling for more intervention by the South African Reserve Bank, Brait economist Colen Garrow has said that the bank should absorb more dollars to boost its reserves. Progress on the net open foreign currency position for October will be unveiled on Friday.
No image available
/ 21 November 2003
The rand’s strength over the past two years might have been more as a result of the currency’s association with other emerging market and commodity-based currencies than with South African specific fundamentals, according to research published by South African commercial bank Absa.
No image available
/ 20 November 2003
South Africa needs rand stability to grow faster, Moody’s Investors Service head of sovereign ratings Kristin Lindow said on Thursday. One of the ways that the South African Reserve Bank can aid rand stability is to buy more dollars to boost its foreign reserves, which were only $7 839-billion at the end of September 2003.
No image available
/ 17 November 2003
The rand at R6,70 per United States dollar remains more than 20% undervalued when using the Big Mac measure. According to this measure it should be R5,30 per dollar. Using the Union Bank of Switzerland measure of living costs in major centres, an even stronger level of R4,12 per dollar is necessary.
No image available
/ 14 November 2003
Contrary to public pronouncements that the rand’s strength is almost exclusively due to United States dollar weakness, the move of the rand to its best trade-weighted level since July 18 2001 gives the lie to this reason. The trade-weighted rand has strengthened by a massive 26% since its worst level in January this year.
No image available
/ 12 November 2003
The South African medium-term Budget policy statement was expected to cut the revenue and gross domestic growth forecast, and extend the foreign exchange amnesty beyond its current deadline of the end of this month — and this is exactly what happened.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=23450">Aids spending to reach R3bn</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=23451">Mboweni: Budget won’t impact inflation</a>
No image available
/ 11 November 2003
Although nominal South African house prices have more than doubled since the beginning of 1999, this does not mean that South Africa is currently experiencing a house price bubble as the real price of houses is still 20% below the 1983 peak, South African commercial bank Absa said on Tuesday.
No image available
/ 6 November 2003
The larger-than-expected 150 basis points cut in the repo rate announced on October 16 is likely to spur South Africa’s consumer into buying more interest-rate sensitive durable goods. This is already reflected in the October new car sales, which rose by 20,2% y/y after a 0,5% y/y decline in the first half.
No image available
/ 30 October 2003
The total volume of goods transported in South Africa during August 2003 slipped by 1,0% y/y to 61 196-million tons after easing back to July’s 2,5% y/y increase of
60 489-million tons, Statistics South Africa said on Thursday.
No image available
/ 27 October 2003
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) will not succeed without sound, well-regulated financial markets, FirstRand Banking Group CEO Paul Harris said on Monday. "The African renaissance … won’t happen unless the continent develops its soft infrastructure," Harris said.
No image available
/ 27 October 2003
South African Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni said on Monday that the bank has to be wary of changing its policy goals in response to changed circumstances. He once again emphasised that the overriding objective of the central bank is to achieve its CPIX inflation targets.
No image available
/ 14 October 2003
Although the money market and capital markets are pricing in a 150 basis point cut on Thursday, an economist at Metropolitan Asset Managers said the South African Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee should err on the side of caution. In particular, the economist was worried about the current account.
The rand may not be the ‘weak’ currency it was. Most of the factors leading to a structurally weak rand are now a matter of history and it may not be as volatile, nor as guilty of infecting South Africa with inflation as it has been, says Investec at a presentation on the company’s view of the global economy.
The South African Chamber of Business has called for a further 300 basis points cut in the prime interest rate by year-end to accelerate economic growth. "In my opinion, the correct level for the real prime rate is between 4% and 5%, so the Reserve Bank is lagging the decline in inflation," said a Sacob economist.
No image available
/ 25 September 2003
The South African rand kept its recent strength against the dollar on Thursday morning on the back of the weaker dollar. Dealers said the April 30 best level of R7,05 per dollar was a key technical level and if that broke then the rand could quickly run to R6,80.
No image available
/ 23 September 2003
Four years after its formation, the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) has finally turned the corner into profitability as it reported a pre-tax profit of R120-million in the 12 months to end March 2003 compared with a pre-tax loss of R71-million in the previous financial year.
No image available
/ 5 September 2003
Although global foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 21% in 2002 to $651-billion, the lowest since 1998’s $686-billion, 30 out of 53 African countries attracted higher inflows in 2002 than in 2001.
Contrary to the hopes of exporters, but in line with official policy, Metropolitan economist Rejane Woodroffe expects the rand to be stronger next year than this year. Her forecast is for the rand to weaken to R8,30 per dollar at the end of this year, but then strengthen to R7,80 at the end of next year.
The 2002 rate hikes were not solely or even mostly to blame for the slowdown in South Africa’s economic growth rate, South African Reserve Bank (SARB) chief economist Ernie van der Merwe told a media briefing on Tuesday.
The South African government had a cash balance of R21,2703-billion at the end of July from a record cash pile of R26,662-billion at the end of June.
Although South Africa’s economic growth rate of an average of 2,8% per annum in the period 1994 to last year was more than twice that of the developed world’s 1,3% average, this high growth was not sufficient to address the high unemployment rate in South Africa, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Monday evening.
News that the South African gold mining industry may this weekend face its first large-scale strike since 1987 should not impact on the rand according to foreign currency traders, as gold now makes up far less of South Africa’s foreign exchange earnings than in 1987.
Monetary policy in South Africa will continue to tighten in the months ahead as the real prime interest, which is also the home loan rate for most people, continues to rise.
The South African rand was consolidating above the 8 per dollar in thin Tuesday morning trade with traders expecting a 8.00 to 8.10 range for the day.
The South African rand was ignoring news from Zimbabwe that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had been arrested as the Movement for Democratic Change launched a week-long "final push".
South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni on Tuesday said the rand’s volatility observed over the past few months is "clearly not healthy for the economy".