Snippet 2023 – 20

Economy & Business; Trends: Hearteningly, there appears to be green shoots in what had been rather dismal financial predictions of late. Y-o-y private sector capital expenditure in the last quarter is up by almost a third, FDI has been boosted by our clean-tech...

Snippet 2023 – 19

Economy & Business; MTBPS Budget: Our Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement has come and gone and there is little to be said about our economy which is not common news. The following is our Finance Minister’s part-solution to the problem: “We propose a strategy of...

Snippet 2023 – 18

Economy & business; Trends: Times are tough, financially speaking, in South Africa today. This is reflected in Famous Brands’ (think Steers, Debonairs, Wimpy, Mug & Bean, FishAways etc.) drop in earnings of late. Government spending and income has been much...

Snippet 2023 – 17

Economy & business Trends Our exchange rate was trading at its worst level against the dollar since early June this week past. This prompted one writer to start talking currency crash; down from R13.7 in mid-2021 to a current level of about R19.1 to the US $....

Snippet 2023 – 16

Economy and business Trends: There is little new to report, save to comment that our economy appears to be holding up better than one would have thought – inflation appears to be abating with core inflation dropping. The Rand has strengthened on the back of, amongst...

Snippet 2023 – 14

Economy and business Trends: Our Rand flattered but deceived: it strengthened but is again weakening on the back of the usual including, surprisingly, a trade deficit. Our S&P PMI is down to its second-lowest level in two years and our manufacturing activity fell...