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/ 25 October 2007
South African bank shares leapt on Thursday after reports that China’s biggest bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, has agreed to buy a 20% stake in Standard Bank, in a deal reported to be worth ,5-billion. Trading in Standard Bank shares was halted ahead of the release of a statement by the bank on the outcome of negotiations.
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/ 24 October 2007
The increase in South Africa’s CPIX (consumer inflation less mortgage costs) for metro and other areas, which is used by the South African Reserve Bank for its inflation target, was up 6,7% year-on-year (y/y) in September from 6,3% y/y in August, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday.
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/ 17 October 2007
South Africa’s retail trade sales picked up again in August, increasing by 6,9% year-on-year, in comparison to July’s 4,9% year-on-year rise, according to data released by Statistics SA on Wednesday. Total retail sales at constant 2000 prices reached R24,5-billion in August, up from R24,1-billion in July 2007.
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/ 16 October 2007
South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni said on Tuesday that the bank expected inflation to peak in February 2008 and then gradually come back to the bank’s 3% to 6% target range. Mboweni said in a speech in Johannesburg that economic growth of above 4,5% was contributing to inflation.
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/ 11 October 2007
Resource stocks added plenty of extra muscle to the JSE on Thursday, which was underpinned by strength in gold and platinum. Earlier in the session the JSE hit a fresh trading high of 31 628,820 points, but was slightly below that level by midday.
South Africa Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni said on Tuesday he would not speak on domestic monetary policy in a speech to a banking conference before an interest-rate decision later this week. ”I have been instructed not to speak about monetary policy here at home … there’s a meeting starting tomorrow [Wednesday], so I can’t speak about that,” he said.
The South African Reserve Bank is expected to forge ahead with its monetary tightening at Thursday’s policy meeting, say global analysts Moody’s Economy.com. The analysts highlight that August credit and sales figures have helped to underpin opinion that the Reserve Bank will raise interest rates by another 50 basis points.
Convicted paedophile Gordon Joubert was given a collective jail sentence of 192 years in the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday, the Star newspaper reported. After his conviction earlier, Joubert suggested to the court the appropriate sentence for him was to be castrated, but the judge ruled otherwise.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) says it stands by its statement on South African Broadcasting Corporation board deputy chairperson Christine Qunta and on Thursday laid complaints against her and the company Comforters Healing Gift. On Wednesday, Qunta’s legal representatives demanded the TAC stop publishing defamatory material about her.
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/ 28 September 2007
The Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni, said on Friday that while credit problems in the United States have given the global imbalance issue some impetus, South Africa also has its own imbalance with the current-account deficit at about 6% of GDP.
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/ 27 September 2007
South Africa’s producer price inflation (PPI) slowed to 9,4% year-on-year in August, below forecasts, after a 10,3% increase in July, official data showed on Thursday. On a monthly basis, PPI increased by 0,7% after a 1,6% rise in July. Economists had forecast that annual PPI come in at 9,7%, while the monthly rate of increase was seen at 1%.
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/ 26 September 2007
South Africa’s targeted CPIX inflation rate slowed to 6,3% in the year to August from 6,5% in July, data showed on Wednesday, slightly above forecasts. Statistics South Africa also said that the all-items consumer price index (CPI) increased by an annual rate of 6,8%, compared to 7% in July.
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/ 19 September 2007
The confidence levels of retailers declined during the third quarter of 2007, according to the latest Bureau for Economic Research (BER) Retail Survey. The BER’s retailer confidence index dipped from a record high of 91 index points in the second quarter of 2007 to a level of 84 during the third quarter.
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/ 14 September 2007
South African inflation is expected to return to its target range in the second half of 2008, the country’s central bank said on Friday. The South African Reserve Bank’s forecast was more hawkish than previous predictions. After its August monetary policy meeting, it expected inflation to come back to the target band in the second quarter of 2008.
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/ 13 September 2007
Growth in employment in South Africa accelerated noticeably over the past eight quarters after a prolonged period of marginal employment gains, the South African Reserve Bank said. The central bank said that improved employment prospects since early 2005 have been evident in both the public and private sector.
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/ 13 September 2007
South Africa’s current-account deficit decreased to 6,5% of the gross domestic product in the second quarter of the year, down from 6,9% in the first, the South African Reserve Bank said on Thursday. This was mainly due to the raised demand for South African exports in the second quarter.
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/ 12 September 2007
South African business confidence fell to a three-and-a-half-year low in the third quarter as vehicle dealers and manufacturers became less optimistic about their prospects. The First National Bank/Bureau for Economic Research business confidence index fell by eight points to 72 compared with the previous quarter.
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/ 6 September 2007
Elna Moolman of Barnard Jacobs Mellet was voted the Reuters Economist of the Year, it was announced on Thursday at a breakfast in Sandton. Governor of the South African Reserve Bank Tito Mboweni presented Moolman with her prize. Moolman said: ”It is a big surprise and it is a great honour.”
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/ 6 September 2007
South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni said on Thursday that while there were some tentative indications of a slowdown in consumption, such as vehicle sales, it was still "early days". Mboweni said that while the current account deficit was being adequately financed by financial inflows, there might be inflationary pressures in the future if the deficit widened.
Growth in demand for credit from South Africa’s private sector slowed to 23,13% year-on-year in July, but money supply rose above forecasts, official data showed on Thursday. The Reserve Bank said credit expansion slowed from a revised 24,99% in June, but the broadly defined M3 measure of money supply grew 24,46%.
While core inflation moderated a tad in July, indicating a slight softening in broader-based inflation, headline numbers remain the key bugbears driving CPIX (consumer inflation less mortgage costs) to its highest level in close to four years and sealing the fate for another increase in interest rates in October.
South Africa’s real gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualised (saa) basis rose by 4,5% in the second quarter of 2007 from 4,7% in the first quarter of 2007, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday. This comes after GDP rose as high as 5,6% in the fourth quarter of last year.