SA easier to trade with — but feeling glummer

SOUTH Africa improved three notches on the World Economic Forum’s Enabling Trade Index, despite bad service at customs and border agencies attracting lower scores. Improved trading conditions placed the country at 55, up from 58 in 2014. MTN Group plans to expand in Iran, from where it has only just managed to begin repatriating profits. The move is part of its 10-year plan to cement its leading position in risky but lucrative frontier markets in the Middle East and Africa. AFRICAN Bank posted R335-million in operating profit for its 2016 financial year, surprising shareholders and other affected parties who would have been expecting millions of rands in losses forecast by the curator of its predecessor bank. THE universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand are in the top 10 of the Brics and Emerging Economies University Rankings 2017, according to World University Rankings 2016-2017‚ a global university performance table. BUSINESS confidence has been falling in the fourth quarter, an outcome that jeopardises efforts to boost economic growth and avert credit-rating downgrades. The RMB index, compiled by the BER, fell to 38 points from 42 the previous quarter. CHEMICALS and fertiliser maker Omnia Holdings posted a 25% drop in half-year profit, hit by slack demand for some core products due to drought and weak economic growth. Headline earnings per share were 371c (from 494c). RCL Foods will lay off more than half of its workforce after cheaper poultry imports reduced its sales, consumer division MD Scott Pitman said. It will reduce its production by 50% and slash 1 350 jobs, he said. NEW-vehicle sales fell 9.6% year on year to 46 413 units in November, data from the Department of Trade and Industry showed, although exports were up 12.1% at 31 508 units compared with the same month last year.