Absa Bank’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), an all important barometer of economic activity and industrial momentum, was marginally down in January yet above last year’s average, the Bureau for Economic Research has reported. “It was still virtually at the neutral-50 mark,” the bureau
said in its latest assessment of South Africa’s economic mood. Furthermore, “a welcome trade surplus was recorded in December, though it was not on the back of more export”. It was also noted that “financial headlines were dominated by a more dovishthan-expected monetary policy statement of the Federal
Reserve (Fed) in the US”. As a result, the dollar slipped against other currencies mainly because of the Fed not wagering to make any prediction about future rates. In addition, “a slowdown in global growth was confirmed by lower GDP growth numbers in the Eurozone and a drop in the Chinese PMI”.
Economic momentum neither here nor there
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