Ford Everest lifts hopes, S&P spoils the outlook

FORD Motor Company will invest R2.5-billion in its South African operations to start production of the Everest SUV and create about 1 200 jobs. The US carmaker’s plant in Pretoria will have capacity to build 10 000 Everests a year. SOUTH Africa’s net gold and foreign exchange reserves totalled $41.175-billion in March, up from $40.958billion in February, Reserve Bank data showed. Gross reserves rose to $46.77-billion from $45.748-billion previously. MANUFACTURING output grew by 1.9% year on year in February after contracting by a revised 2.6% in January, data from Stats SA showed. On a month-on-month basis, factory production was up 1.3%. THE Business Confidence Index continued its recovery in March after falling to its lowest level in more than two decades in December, rising to 81.2 from 80.1 the previous month, the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry said. STANDARD & Poor’s cut its 2016 growth forecast for South Africa by half as it warned that pressure on the country’s credit rating came mainly from slow economic expansion. The ratings agency lowered its growth forecast for this year from 1.6% to 0.8%. STANDARD Bank’s purchasing managers’ index fell to 47 in March from 49.1 in February‚ the worst level in 18 months. The average PMI over the first quarter as a whole was the worst since the inception of the survey in July 2011. THE Industrial Development Corporation is expected to record a “significant” after-tax loss of about R1.8-billion in financial 2015-16 because of higher-thanexpected impairments due to the economic slowdown. CITRUS growers in South Africa face losses of about R50-million after voluntarily suspending all exports of organic lemons to the EU due the risk of citrus black spot, which causes blemishes on the fruit’s peel.