News in South Africa 2nd August: 1. US stripped of AAA rating: The US was stripped of its top-tier sovereign credit grade by Fitch Ratings, which criticized the country’s ballooning fiscal deficits and an “erosion of governance” that’s led to repeated debt limit clashes over the past two decades. The credit grader cut the US […]
News in South Africa 26th May: 1. Rand plunged to new record low: The rand crashed to a new record low overnight, reaching R19.8279/$ on Thursday night. The currency has now lost almost 26% of its value over the past year. In the past two weeks alone, since the US accusation that Russia received arms […]
News in South Africa 22nd May: 1. Stage 8 all but certain: Business interest group BLSA says that stage 8 load shedding is all but certain in the coming months, warning that companies relying on diesel to keep their operations going during outages will be hit even harder as the lights go out for as […]
News in South Africa 17th May: 1. Unemployment rises: South Africa’s unemployment rate rose for the first time in more than a year and may continue climbing as power cuts intensify, discouraging investment and sapping economic growth. The official jobless rate jumped to 32.9% in the three months through March from 32.7% in the prior […]
News in South Africa 8th May: 1. Close call for recession in SA: Economists say South Africa may have escaped a technical recession in the first quarter of the year, but the extreme volatility in the economic data being put out makes it difficult to call. Economists from the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) and […]
News in South Africa 19th April: 1. Zero economic growth for SA: Many experts project close to zero economic growth for 2023 as severe load-shedding has hobbled the country’s growth prospects. In 2022, the economy grew by 2.5% – above the 1.9% proposed by the minister of finance in the medium-term expenditure framework. Economic growth […]
News in South Africa 13th February: 1. 68% chance of recession: South Africa’s economy is increasingly vulnerable to a recession in the next 12 months, with an ongoing electricity crisis seen further curbing activity. The probability of a recession stands at 68%, up from odds of 45% in January, according to Bloomberg’s latest monthly survey […]
News in South Africa 6th January: 1. Rand weakens over red flags: The South African rand has weakened alongside other emerging market currencies as the dollar rebounded this week. On Thursday (5 January), the rand weakened in early trade as investors awaited the monthly purchasing managers’ index (PMI) survey by S&P Global to find clues […]
News in South Africa 22nd December: 1. Load shedding filled holidays: South Africans are set for a bleak, load-shedding-interrupted ‘festive’ season as Eskom’s generating output plummets to completely new lows. At Tuesday evening’s peak, it wasn’t even able to output 23 000MW in total. This forced unprecedented overnight Stage 6 load shedding so that it […]
News in South Africa 21st December: 1. Minimum wage changes: Early in 2023, South Africa could have a new medium-term target for what the minimum wage should be. But it will not be a rand amount. Instead it will be a statement of intent – and a guarantee that minimum-wage earners will never fall behind […]
