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Pretoria - Labour strife in South Africa's mining sector does not seem likely at this stage to affect the country's budget deficit, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Wednesday.
"At this point in time there's no indication that our deficit might be affected negatively.
"But as you know things can move up or down within the space of a few months so we cannot actually forecast what will happen," Gordhan told a news conference.
Last week, mining unions and gold companies started wage talks on billed as the toughest since the end of apartheid, with demands for a doubling of basic pay set against collapsing bullion prices and shrinking profit margins.
The two-yearly negotiations normally take two months but this year's talks are expected to drag out because of a union turf war that sparked strikes last year in which producers lost billions of rands of output and some workers were killed.
"At this point in time there's no indication that our deficit might be affected negatively.
"But as you know things can move up or down within the space of a few months so we cannot actually forecast what will happen," Gordhan told a news conference.
Last week, mining unions and gold companies started wage talks on billed as the toughest since the end of apartheid, with demands for a doubling of basic pay set against collapsing bullion prices and shrinking profit margins.
The two-yearly negotiations normally take two months but this year's talks are expected to drag out because of a union turf war that sparked strikes last year in which producers lost billions of rands of output and some workers were killed.
