JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s manufacturing output rose 0.8% year-on-year in January, lagging market expectations, after contracting 2% in December, Statistics Africa said on Tuesday.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast manufacturing volumes would rise by 1.05% year-on-year in January.
On a month-on-month basis, factory production fell 0.4% and edged down by 0.4% also in a few of the months to January compared with the prior 12 weeks.
Economic and financial conditions have improved ever since the start this year, said Nedbank inside a statement released . “You will find early indications of a modest pickup in global and domestic demand, nonetheless the recovery appears slow, with certainty still highly fragile and credit demand still very weak. The majority of the factors that drove inflation higher in 2016 also seems to be reversing.?Good summer rains may lessen food prices later this coming year, even though the trade-weighted rand has gained 2.6% ever since the begin 2017.?
“These developments propose that loan rates have likely peaked. However, we still expect the MPC to err on the side of caution, considering the rand’s vulnerability to adverse turns in local politics, threats on the country’s investment grade status, a quicker and steeper pace of US apr normalisation and any reduction in momentum while in the global commodity markets. We expect that the MPC will begin easing mortgage rates only within the wife or husband of the year.”?