Johannesburg - Statistics South Africa said on Thursday
producer inflation, which represents domestic output, slowed to 9.8%
year-on-year (y/y) in December from 10.1% in November.
Peter Attard Montalto, emerging market economist at Nomura,
said most of the easing came from mining.
"The effects of energy cost push pressures were less in
this release than previous ones," he said.
Consumer inflation was steady at 6.1% y/y in December
- above the top end of the Reserve Bank’s 3%-6% for the second month in a row.
Statistics South Africa plans sweeping changes to the producer price index (PPI) that
will make it a more relevant indicator for consumer prices from 2013. For now, PPI is dominated by commodities and tends to move in tandem with those
prices.
The central bank has left its repo rate unchanged at 5.5% so
far this year after reducing it by 650 basis points in the two years to
end-2010.