Gordhan confident on rating; repo rate rises

FINANCE Minister Pravin Gordhan said he was confident South Africa could avoid rating downgrades, even though ratings agencies have said a weak economy and worsening fiscal deficits pose a major risk to its investmentgrade status. MTN Group said Nigerian regulators had lifted a suspension on services to the cellphone company, an indication that relations between the two are thawing as they negotiate payment of a record $3.9-billion fine. AVERAGE headline CPI inflation expectations for 2016 and 2017 remained unchanged at 6.2% relative to the fourth quarter of 2015‚ the Bureau for Economic Research said in its inflation expectations survey for the first quarter. THE Western Cape provincial government aims to launch 384 Wi-Fi hotspots in strategic locations across the province to ensure maximum coverage for residents by 2019. Together with Neotel‚ it launched the first 50 this week. THE Reserve Bank raised its benchmark interest rate for a second time this year in a decision that split the monetary policy committee and as a political crisis engulfing the country hurt the currency. The repurchase rate was increased to 7% from 6.75%. RETAIL sales expanded at a slower rate in January as yet another sector succumbed to rising inflation and the threat of higher lending rates. Retail sales on a monthon-month basis contracted 0.3% after 1.5% growth in December. ARCELORMITTAL South Africa said it would increase the prices of its steel products from April as it tried to stabilise the business amid rising input costs and after heavy losses due to competition from cheap imports. SOUTH African potato prices more than doubled in 2016 from a year earlier as the worst drought in decades cut yields in growing regions, said Pieter van Zyl, an agricultural economist at Potatoes South Africa.