News Flash: SA Interest Rates Remains Unchanged
JOHANNESBURG - The South African Reserve Bank announced that there will be no changes made to the repurchase rate following their Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting.
Lesetja Kganyago, the Sarb governor told media today at a press briefing that the MPC unanimously decided to keep the repurchase rate unchanged at 6.5% per annum.
Earlier this year in May, the MPC decided to keep the interest rate unchanged at 6.5% and the prime lending rate 10%.
Earlier today, Business Report reported that economists said that the slight increase in inflation was unlikely to sway Sarb’s hand into undue hawkishness when its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) delivered its interest rates decision this afternoon.
Investec’s Lara Hodes said that the market expected no change in the repo rate as the outlook remained relatively flat in the immediate term. Hodes said that the MPC would be more concerned with oil prices and the rand’s exchange rate against the dollar.
“We estimate that the longterm structural inflation rate in South Africa is around 5.5 percent year on year and continue to forecast a 25basis point (bp) hike in the repo rate in January 2019, with another in March 2019 and a further 25bp lift in 2020 in order to return South Africa’s interest rates to neutral levels,” Hodes said.