New exchange gets the nod as confidence falls

SOUTH Africa issued its first stock exchange operating licence in more than 100 years, paving the way for a local company to compete with the JSE. ZAR X Stock Exchange will start operating in September after securing approval from the Financial Services Board, it said. THE sugar industry was confident it could produce enough sugar to supply the local market in 2015-16 despite the severe drought in several sugar-growing regions‚ Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said. LENDER Capitec Bank Holdings reported a 26% rise in annual profit as growth in client numbers boosted both interest and transaction fee income. It said it had gained one million active clients over the past year. SOUTH Africa recorded a surplus of more than R16billion in February, the 11th month of financial 2015-16, compared with a R14billion surplus a year earlier, revenue and expenditure data from the Treasury showed. MTN South Sudan, a unit of South Africa’s MTN and one of the country’s biggest telecoms operators, was cutting dozens of jobs and cancelling expansion projects such as the construction of new cellular sites due to an economic crisis, it said. MANUFACTURING business confidence tumbled to a six-year low‚ with the Bureau for Economic Research’s manufacturing survey falling sharply to 18 points in the first quarter from 34 points in the fourth quarter of last year. PRODUCER inflation accelerated to 8.1% year on year in February from 7.6% in January, Stats SA data showed. On a month-on-month basis, prices at the factory gate were up 0.8%, compared with a 1.6% rise in the previous month. NEW vehicle sales fell by 14% year on year to 47 631 units in March, data from the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA showed. Exports slipped 18.5% to 27 714 units compared with the same month last year, it said.