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 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
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.
Johannesburg - South Africa's trade account recorded a R0.97bn surplus in March compared with a R0.4bn shortfall in February, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) said on Friday.
Exports went up by 15.3% month-on-month in March, while imports rose by 12.7%.
Economists surveyed by Reuters expected the trade account to register a R0.9bn deficit in March.
Salomi Odendaal, economist at Citadel said the numbers indicate that imports were not strong.
"We saw with credit data earlier that the domestic recovery is on track but is not booming, while exports are benefiting from global demand for commodities and remain strong," she said.
“One can expect that if the rand remains strong and recovery picks up imports will pick up as well. But for this year, we should have a fairly small deficit if things continue in this way.”
Despite a trade surplus in 2010, analysts see the trade account swinging back into deficit in 2011, partly on a recovery in consumer spending after a recession in 2009.