Retail skips ahead of business blues
SOUTH Africa’s unemployment rate eased to 24.1% of the labour force in the fourth quarter of 2013, the lowest in seven quarters, from a revised 24.5% in the third, Stats SA said in its quarterly labour force survey. MANUFACTURING output rose 2.5% year on year in volume terms in December following a 0.3% increase in November, Stats SA data showed. On a month-onmonth basis, factory production was up 0.4%. FIVE South African retail operations — Shoprite‚ Steinhoff‚ Pick n Pay‚ Spar Group and Woolworths — have made it into the Deloitte global Top 250 retailers list‚ the professional services firm said. DEBT stress among South African businesses continued to fall in the fourth quarter, the newly launched Experian SA Business Debt index‚ compiled with Econometrix‚ showed. It rose to 0.393 from 0.376. RETAIL sales grew at 3.5% year on year in December from a revised 4.4% in November, Stats SA said. Economists had expected sales growth of 2.7%. On a month-onmonth basis, sales were up 1.4%. RICHARDS Bay Coal Terminal would take seven weeks to clear a backlog in coal shipping after a week-long power outage, the company said. Africa’s largest coal exporter said power was restored to the terminal last weekend. TIGHT household financial circumstances‚ slow domestic growth and rising costs have put a damper on business trade, with the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry trade activity index dipping to 47 in January from 48. CONSTRUCTION group Wilson Bayly HolmesOvcon expects interim headline earnings a share to decrease by 17.5%- 22.5% from a year ago, owing in part to losses from Capital Star Steel‚ the pipe factory in Mozambique. FURNITURE retailer and provider of unsecured loans the JD Group said it would sell shares worth as much as R1.5billion as it increased provisions against bad debt and that it would report a loss for the fiscal first half. ALMOST half of South Africans — 48% — say the country is moving in the wrong direction because of concerns about the cost of living and the ability to encourage international investment, according to a survey by Ipsos.