The Reserve Bank seeks to diversify its currency exposure to help protect reserves from a potential rise in US Treasury yields.
South Africa needs to shield itself against capital outflows by boosting its foreign currency reserves, says Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus.
The cost of manufacturing goods in South Africa rose higher in August than last month, meaning more pressure on consumer prices.
Governor Gill Marcus says the South African Reserve Bank will maintain the current repo rate.
The rand has depreciated as investors gauged that a surge against the dollar, after the US Fed suddenly maintained monetary stimulus, was overdone.
The industry association has said that sales unexpectedly dropped in August compared with figures from a year before.
SA’s latest inflation figures, manufacturing updates from China and housing data from the US are some of this week’s big items on the data diary.
SA inflation figures, indicators of growth in Europe and China, US corporate earnings reports and elections in Japan will make for a busy week.
The cost of goods leaving factories rose at a slower pace in May than the previous month, easing pressure on the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates.
The Reserve Bank governor has said policy makers’ core mandate is to control inflation even as economic growth forecasts are set to be lowered.
Large gold shipment from New York to South Africa has set off rumbles in the business world.
Retail-sales growth has slowed in March from a year earlier as inflation has remained close to the top of the central bank’s target.
As expected, the reserve bank left the repo rate unchanged at 5% at its monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting.
The Reserve Bank has reported that the current account deficit for the fourth quarter of 2012 came in higher than expected at 6.5% of the GDP.
There is a large gap between what the country is exporting and what it is importing.
New economic research by ETM Analytics has put South Africa in some dangerous company.
The US’s central bank is set to rule on the need for more stimulus and Germany will decide where it stands on the funding for EU bail-outs.
The reserve bank says South Africa’s outlook remains modest, with a recovery in domestic demand and supply expected barring further global turmoil.
The monetary policy committee on Thursday decided to leave the repo rate — at which the Reserve Bank lends to commercial bank at 5.5%.
In an unprecedented move to bombproof SA’s major lenders, a multibillion-rand emergency fund has been set up to help them weather any liquidity storm.
Snapshots of EU and US consumer sentiment are due this week, but all eyes in SA will be on the Reserve Bank’s interest rate decision on Thursday.
SA’s economic recovery is not sustainable yet and is still relying on loose monetary and expansionary fiscal policies, says deputy finance minister.
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/ 1 December 2010
The independence of South Africa’s Reserve Bank is not undermined by new economic growth proposals unveiled by the government last week.
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/ 25 October 2010
There is speculation that the Reserve Bank may consider another rate cut. But what would this mean for consumers?
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/ 9 September 2010
The Reserve Bank cut its repo rate by 50 basis points to 6% as expected on Thursday to give further boost to a stuttering economic recovery.