May 2023

31 May 2023 – The Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) on Friday boosted its estimate of maize production for South Africa for 2022–2023 by 2% from the previous month to 16 million tons attributable to favourable weather conditions. This bodes well for improving profit margins in the livestock sector, FNB Agri-Business senior agricultural economist Paul Makube […]

29 May 2023 – Stats SA has published the latest liquidation statistics for businesses in South Africa, showing that 523 companies have shut their doors in the country to date. The stats body showed that 112 businesses were liquidated in April 2023, 99 on a voluntary basis and 13 on a compulsory basis. This adds

29 May 2023 – Except for the Port of Gqberha (Port Elizabeth), South Africa’s main ports of Ngqura, Durban and Cape Town have again been outperformed by their Sub-Saharan rivals in the latest Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) – slipping to dead last in the region’s rankings. According to box-handling data for 2022, gathered by

26 May 2023 – The retail industry contributed more than R1tn in sales to South Africa’s economy in 2021, with the FMCG sector’s contribution estimated at over 70% of those sales. The sector returned good sales growth and its defensive nature is borne out by fact that sales grew at the height of the pandemic,

25 May 2023 – South Africa’s export trade continues to set new records, a trend that began during the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic. At just below R170bn, exports for March were a whopping 32% higher than in February and 10% higher than the previous record (in March 2021). It is clear that the

24 May 2023 – Trade conditions have been under pressure since January 2022 and ended April at 43 points, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) reports. While trade expectations were well into positive territory over the last 12 months, there was notable volatility towards the end of last year into 2023. In April, respondents only expected 51%

23 May 2023 – The rand recovered to around R19.25 to the dollar yesterday after touching a new record low on Friday, amid relief that South Africa’s credit rating was not downgraded by Moody’s and expectations of another rate hike by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) to tame inflation. The domestic currency sank to

22 May 2023 – SA’s import bill could surge R110bn in 2023 due to a weaker rand, Genera Capital investment specialist Adrian Saville has estimated, as the pressure mounts on the Reserve Bank before its monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting next week. The drop in the value of the currency since the most recent MPC

19 May 2023 – China’s imports from Africa fell by 11.8 per cent to US$35.5 billion in the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year because of weakened demand for minerals and lower commodity prices – a trend analysts attributed in part to a subdued economic recovery in China

18 May 2023 – South Africa benefited immensely more from trade with the US than Russia and must tread carefully not to imperil trade deals in place, such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which is up for renewal next year, the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) said yesterday. It was referring