Author: Helmo Preuss

Former Rhodes journalism student Lyndsey Duff aims to address your mapping needs by dividing the world up into 3 metre by 3 metre boxes – each box having three unique words in 14 languages with isiXhosa, isiZulu and Afrikaans to follow shortly. Duff was at the Africa Com conference in Cape Town to present her ideas and was rewarded with two awards for the most innovative app. The app she is promoting will eliminate the costly and time consuming effort when your GPS address is wrong. It addresses the problem of locating a person in a large building when…

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The third quarter 2017 Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) shows that there was a 38.2% or 216,000 year-on-year (y/y) surge in the number of unemployed to 781,000 in Eastern Cape (EC). Although this is cause for alarm, the analysis needs to be nuanced, as better job prospects can result in a rise in the number of unemployed, as people move from the not economically active category either into the employed or looking for work category. The data showed that because I know a friend who has now got a job that makes it…

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The South African current account deficit on the balance of payments widened to 2.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) on a seasonally adjusted annualised basis in the second quarter 2017 from a revised 2.0% (2.1%) in the fourth quarter 2016, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) said in its latest Quarterly Bulletin. Economists had expected a narrowing in the current account deficit to 1.9% of GDP in the second quarter due to the large foreign trade surplus, but the improvement in the trade surplus was outweighed by the widening in the services, income and current transfer deficits. The trade…

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Real disposable income, in other words what you get to take home after tax, increased slightly for the sixth consecutive month in August on a year-on-year (y/y) basis according to data released by economists.co.za. They analyse the information of transfers via the South African payments system and create an index called the BankservAfrica Disposable Salary Index (BDSI). The bottom line is that although the y/y increase slowed to 1.1% in August from 2.5% in July, this followed nine consecutive months last year when there were y/y declines, as take-home pay did not keep pace with inflation. As inflation recedes…

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Although food inflation slowed to 5.4% year-on-year (y/y) in September from 5.7% y/y in August and 6.8% y/y in July, this was not enough to prevent a rise in the overall consumer inflation rate to 5.1% y/y in September from 4.8% y/y in August and 4.6% y/y in July. This increase was largely due to a swing in the fuel price inflation from a 3.6% y/y decline in July to a 5.7% y/y rise in August and a 12.2% y/y jump in September. There should be a moderation in the fuel price inflation to the 11% y/y level in October,…

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Manufacturing production returned to growth in August after four months of year-on-year (y/y) contraction. Output rose by 1.5% y/y in August compared with the consensus forecast of a small (0.05%) decline. The major factor was a large 11.3% y/y jump in the basic iron and steel, non-ferrous metal products, metal products and machinery sector. This was because steel and aluminium are key inputs in car manufacturing, which saw a 11% y/y rise vehicle exports to a record high in September, while new vehicle sales in the domestic market increased for the fourth consecutive month. The surge in this sector had…

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Former Rhodes University journalism student Brendon Peel is now a fulltime “magician mentalist” after he honed his skills at seven successive National Arts Festivals. Those skills resulted in a mind blowing show at the Alexander Bar, which is one of the many venues for the Cape Town Fringe Festival. In the past three years, the Fringe was held at the City Hall, but as this venue is undergoing renovations, the Fringe organisers, who also organise the National Arts Festival, decided to use multiple venues that bring the arts to the people, so the venues are in suburbs such as Delft,…

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Slowing food inflation fails to stop rise in overall consumer inflation   By Helmo Preuss Although food inflation slowed to 5.7% year-on-year (y/y) in August from 6.8% y/y in July, this was not enough to prevent a rise in the overall consumer inflation to 4.8% y/y in August from 4.6% y/y in July. This rise was largely due to a swing in the fuel price inflation from a 3.6% y/y decline in July to a 5.7% y/y increase in August. The bad news is that there is likely to be 30 cent per litre increase in the petrol price in…

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The second quarter 2017 gross domestic product data released by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday showed that farming and exports led the rebound in economic activity to a 2.5% quarter-on-quarter (q/q) seasonally adjusted annualised (saa) increase in the second quarter after two consecutive quarters of contraction. In terms of detail, the production measure of GDP showed that the weakness in the first quarter was broad-based with only the agriculture and mining sectors expanding out of the ten production sectors, while in the second quarters it was only two sectors that declined. These sectors were construction and government services. From an…

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The FNB/BER Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) fell to -9 in the second quarter 2017 from -5 in the first quarter, but remained above the recent low of -15 touched in the second quarter 2015. Consumer confidence surveys provide regular assessments of consumer attitudes and expectations and give an indication of economic trends and prospects so retailers and manufacturers can adjust their inventories. Consumer confidence is expressed as a net balance. The net balance is derived as the percentage of respondents expecting an improvement / good time to buy durable goods less the percentage expecting a deterioration / bad time to…

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