March 2021

31 March 2021 – Bank of America (BofA) has lifted its growth forecast for SA to 3.8% this year, up from its earlier forecast of 2.9% – and ahead of National Treasury’s forecast of 3.3%. Powering this bump in growth are better than expected commodity prices which are expected to remain high for the foreseeable […]

30 March 2021 – South African agricultural stakeholders want to increase exports to BRIC(S) countries. This message came sharply in a hybrid event the Agricultural Business Chamber of SA (Agbiz) had with its members, commodity organizations and government representatives on March 19. The event’s primary focus was to explore how South Africa’s agriculture and agribusiness

29 March 2021 – Prospects of a third wave of Covid19 infections have jinxed the country’s production landscape, with many companies pointing to a drawn-out recovery period in factory activity. A year after the country first went into hard lockdown, South Africa’s manufacturers are still reporting constrained supply chains and raw material shortages due to

25 March 2021 – Global restrictions implemented to curb the spread of Covid-19 have had a direct impact on manufacturing supply chains with constraints still evident across many manufacturing subsectors a year after the country first went into hard lockdown, according to the Q1 Absa Manufacturing Survey. “South African manufacturers are reporting issues in the

24 March 2021 – The lower oil prices in 2020 kept South Africa’s agricultural input costs at reasonably lower levels in 2020. But this year will not be the same; the Brent crude oil price has recovered from lower levels last seen this period last year when the pandemic hit the world, and there was

23 March 2021 – Wholesalers have followed their retail counterparts as sales plunged into contractionary territory in January as lockdown measures depressed demand. Data from Statistics SA (StatsSA) yesterday showed wholesale trade declined 7.1 percent in January compared with the same month a year ago. The wholesale trade data print, which rose 1.8 percent in

19 March 2021 – While there has been a slight uptick in domestic and international cargo traffic in recent weeks, the fact remains that South Africa is struggling to counter the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown responses. Overall maritime cargo for January 2021 was down 15% compared to the same time last year,

18 March 2021 – For many years, South Africa has prided itself as the most food-secure country in the African continent and has also ranked relatively well with its peer BRICS countries. But disappointingly, the results of the 2020 Global Food Security Index recently released by The Economist and Corteva show that South Africa has regressed. South Africa is

17 March 2021 – South African agriculture had a “remarkable year” last year, the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Production (BFAP) has reported. This was despite the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused all other sectors of the South African economy (except government services) to contract.  While the national economy as a whole experienced its greatest contraction since

16 March 2021 – South Africa’s Country Risk Report 2021 Rating: C3 – Sensitive risk for enterprise Strengths Rich natural resource base (gold, platinum, chrome, manganese, vanadium, coal and diamonds) Key strategic economic and political player in the region Judicial and business environments aligned with advanced standards Exchange rate flexibility helps to cushion external shocks