Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 27 2012 11:49
The country's 200 000-odd Tupperware agents are angry about the counterfeit products being sold as the real McCoy.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Johannesburg - Although consumer price inflation (CPI) fell back into the South African Reserve Bank's target range of three to six percent in October, it is unlikely to persuade the monetary policy committee to lower interest rates.
According to Statistics SA, CPI eased slightly to 5.9% year-on-year in October from 6.1 percent year-on-year in September.
CPI has not fallen within SARB's target range since April 2007.
"While CPI inflation has regained target, it is unlikely to consistently remain within the three to six percent band over the next six months due to base effects and the impact of salary and wage increases, which are still running well above six percent," Investec group economist Annabel Bishop said.
"It should rise just above six percent in the next couple of months, but consistently regain target toward the middle of 2010, providing electricity tariffs are not hiked by more than 30 percent in nominal terms."
The Efficient Group's Freddie Mitchell concurred. "At 5.9% we are in the inflation band, so that's good news. But just how long we are going to stay there is dependent on electricity hikes next year and also when consumer demand starts returning to the market, what effects that will have on consumer prices in the future," he said according to I-Net Bridge. "But it's good news for now."
- Sapa