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Inflation

Coming in at 5.7% year-on-year in January, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation in South Africa appears to have passed its peak of 5.9% in December. This is the view of Casey Delport, investment analyst at Anchor Capital, who said the key drivers were again food, energy and transportation costs. “Although we remain concerned about upside risk to food and fuel inflation in the first half of the year, there should be strong favourable base effects in the second half. As we believe that inflation will remain relatively contained throughout 2022, any moves from the SA Reserve Bank to hike interest rates will be driven more by global pressures, as opposed to local factors,” Delport said.