News in South Africa 26th February: 1. South Africans are poorer: An analysis of household finances shows that real salaries have deteriorated in 2023, with South Africans going into more financial distress in the final quarter of last year. This is according to Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop, who pointed to data from BankservAfrica that […]
News in South Africa 22nd February: 1. 2024 Budget speech in a nutshell: Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivered the 2024 National Budget Speech on Wednesday, 21 February. The budget touched on many points and topics, including the country’s current economic standing, growth estimates, the massive debt servicing costs, heightened sin tax proposals and the extension […]
News in South Africa 20th February: 1. Rand weakens: The rand has weakened with the market worried about South Africa’s marked fiscal slippage. In the 2023 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MBTPS), gross debt was projected to peak at 77.7% of GDP in 2025/26, far higher than February 2023’s Budget estimate of 73.6%. Investec Chief Economist […]
News in South Africa 19th February: 1. Petrol price storm approaches: South African consumers are heading into a fuel price storm, with a petrol and diesel hike coming in March, possible fuel tax hikes in April, and the wider impact on transport, shelf prices and inflation likely to be felt in the months that follow. […]
News in South Africa 6th February: 1. Consumer relief on the horizon: Battered by low wage growth, high interest rates, and increasing debt levels, many South African consumers are in the worst financial shape they’ve been in for years, maybe even decades. The result is a persistently weak economy. This faltering economy, driven mostly by […]
News in South Africa 29th January: 1. SA risks losing out on new ‘gold rush’: The world’s need to decarbonise should benefit South Africa’s mining sector – but government inefficiencies are pushing the industry off the rails. Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busiswe Mavuso said the rapid deterioration of Transnet’s ability to move resources across […]
News in South Africa 11th December: 1. South Africa’s 2023 in review: With 2023 coming to a close, Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busiswe Mavuso has looked at the progress South Africa has made during the year and the setbacks. The good Despite a record year of load shedding, there has been progress in the […]
News in South Africa 17th October: 1. Food insecurity warning: The number of people unable to meet their minimum food consumption needs in South Africa is expected to marginally decline to just under one in two by 2025, according to the World Data Lab. The firm, which conducted research for Shoprite Holdings Ltd.’s food index, […]
News in South Africa 16th October: 1. Population grows – economy falls: The most notable figure in the 2022 census of SA’s population is confirmation that the population increased to above 62 million people, which is close to 20% higher than in the previous census 10 years ago. An immediate thought that comes to mind is that […]
News in South Africa 12th October: 1. Foreigners flee SA stocks: Foreign investors have accelerated their (net) selling of equities on the JSE, with sales 40% greater thus far in 2023 than in the same period in 2022. To last Friday, non-SA investors sold a net R103 billion of equities, versus R73 billion in the […]
