SA inflation rate defies forecasts

Prices rose 0,4 percent in the month. The Reserve Bank, which has kept its benchmark lending rate unchanged at 5,5 percent since November 2010, expects inflation to peak at 6,5 percent in the second quarter because of rising energy costs. The bank has limited room to cut interests rates as inflation stays near the top of its 3 percent to 6 percent target band, governor Gill Marcus said on March 8.
“It’s pretty certain that tomorrow (today) won’t deliver any change,” Carmen Nel, an economist at Rand Merchant Bank in Cape Town, said in a phone interview today. “It’s a positive surprise relative to the Reserve Bank’s inflation expectation.”
The central bank will probably keep the lending rate unchanged tomorrow, according to all 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
The rand was little changed at 8,3925 against the dollar from 8,3904 before the data was released.
The yield on the benchmark rand bond due in 2015 gained six basis points, or 0,06 percentage points, to 6,39 percent. — Bloomberg.

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