Bumper maize crop, but new El Niño looms

SWEDISH retailer H&M has continued on its winning streak in South Africa, dodging the malaise to which domestic retail players have succumbed. In the first quarter of its 2017 financial year, H&M’s sales increased 39% in rand terms to about R356-million.

SOUTH Africa was poised to harvest the second-biggest maize crop on record, said the agriculture business chamber Agbiz, an organisation that represents commercial farmers and agribusiness enterprises nationally.

FACTORY and farmgate inflation, which averaged 7% in 2016 due to a severe drought pushing up food prices, continued its deceleration in February, coming in at 5.6%. This followed January’s sharp drop to 5.9% from December’s 7.1%.

THERE were fewer liquidations in February than a year earlier, while insolvencies in January also improved. The total number of liquidations recorded fell 24.4%, Stats SA said. The estimated number of insolvencies fell 13.3%.

DROUGHT conditions associated with an El Niño weather pattern were likely to recur in a few months’ time, the government said. The previous El Niño brought widespread drought to Southern Africa, hitting crop production and fuelling inflation.

SUN International scrapped its dividend after posting a drop in annual profit, seeking to conserve capital to reduce debt and complete a casino complex in Pretoria. It is scheduled to open the R4.2-billion Time Square project next month.

THE National Credit Regulator is seeking legal clarity in a case against WesBank, which it claims is contravening the National Credit Act by persuading defaulting consumers to surrender cars bought under credit deals.

THE mining industry shed almost 50 000 jobs from 2012 to 2015, mostly in the gold and platinum sectors, Stats SA said in the Mining Industry 2015 report. Job losses have continued in the sector, which contributed 7.3% of South Africa’s GDP in 2016.