May 2020

15 May 2020 – One reason for China’s strictness may be earlier research suggesting that different types of Paris Club relief lead to different economic outcomes. Debt stock relief is found to enhance economic growth and a change to repayment terms to induce greater fiscal prudence and better prospects of long-run debt sustainability. This trade-off […]

14 May 2020 – On 30 April 2020, the South African Revenue Services (SARS) released South Africa’s latest official trade data – trade for March 2020. The data shows some of the initial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, mainly driven by shutdowns in some of the major economies and South Africa’s main trading partners which

13 May 2020 – The new normal is both a daunting and exhausting topic, one that many people are tired of hearing about, or approach with trepidation. One fact about discussing “the new normal” that may bring comfort to some is that millions of people around the globe are discussing what that may look like.

12 May 2020 – Business confidence fell to the lowest levels ever recorded during April as the cumulative effects of the coronavirus lockdown, ratings downgrades and an overstretched fiscus took hold in an economy already confronting recession. The SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry Business Confidence Index (Sacci BCI) fell to 77.8 in April from

11 May 2020 – The closing of markets has disrupted the supply of produce and the Covid-19 pandemic has created fears about food security. This is according to the President of the World Farmers Organisation, Theo de Jager, who is of the opinion that food security in Limpopo, the country and throughout the world could suffer

8 May 2020 – The world’s economy has taken a hit since COVID-19 outbreak first took hold, with stock markets reporting all-time lows and Wall Street going into its fastest bear market plunge in history. But is the fate of each country’s economy equal right now in this time of crisis? It seems not. Where each country

7 May 2020 – Credit-rating companies should suspend their assessments for the foreseeable future because downgrades can force asset managers to sell sovereign debt and unnecessarily increase the cost of capital when economies are already facing headwinds due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the head of South Africa’s tax agency. Some of Africa’s biggest

6 May 2020 – One of the strangest notions last week was the government instruction to only allow certain manufacturers to use only 50percent of their workforce during the new Phase 4 of the Covid-19 lockdown. Modern manufacturing is based on producing a certain number of widgets over a certain period, which then results in

5 May 2020 – The Absa Purchasing Managers’ Index’s (PMI’s) business activity subindex crashed to an all-time low of 5.1 index points in April. The decline means that manufacturing output came to a near standstill during the nationwide lockdown to combat the spread of Covid-19, with almost all respondents reporting a decline in activity compared

4 May 2020 – S&P Global Ratings has lowered South Africa’s sovereign credit rating further into non-investment grade, or junk, citing the impact of the coronavirus on the country’s already struggling economy.  On Thursday evening the rating agency announced it had downgraded SA’s long-term foreign-currency credit rating to ‘BB-‘, or the third tier of non-investment