Economy

Budget 2024: Pre-insights

The annual budget speech is, at the best of times, a statement of intent in which economic and fiscal prudence competes with political expedience. When a country’s overall macro-economic and fiscal position is sound, it is relatively easy to accommodate a populist agenda without incurring high opportunity costs.

SA Government needs to go beyond snapshots

The 2024 State of the Nation address was nothing more than a series of bland and recycled "snapshots" rather than an opportunity to outline strategic benchmarks to assess and address the degree of underperformance experienced across multiple sectors.

Unchanged rates decision expected to be mildly positive for commercial property and mortgage demand

Today’s unchanged repo rate decision was as expected by FNB. This means that the SARB has kept interest rates unchanged since May 2023, after a prior 475 basis point hiking cycle starting late 2021.

MPC reaction from EY's Africa Chief Economist, only mild easing expected in H2