{"id":13378,"date":"2012-08-10T14:20:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-10T12:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/update-1-africa-money-food-inflation-entrenched-in-southern-africa\/"},"modified":"2012-08-10T14:20:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T12:20:30","slug":"update-1-africa-money-food-inflation-entrenched-in-southern-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-africa-money-food-inflation-entrenched-in-southern-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-AFRICA MONEY-Food inflation entrenched in southern Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Adds Mozambique, editing)<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Ed Stoddard<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG<\/span> Aug 10 (Reuters) &#8211; Food inflation is taking<br \/>\nhold in southern Africa, putting pressure on some state budgets<br \/>\nand making it hard for central banks to loosen monetary policy<br \/>\nin the hunt for growth and jobs.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>U.S. drought has driven corn prices to historic peaks, and<br \/>\nmaize and wheat futures in South Africa, the continent&#8217;s biggest<br \/>\nproducer, are at or near record highs, raising the stakes for<br \/>\ngovernments such as Mozambique that subsidise the cost of basic<br \/>\nfood.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The price pressures constrain central banks in the region,<br \/>\nnotably in South Africa, which is feeling the pinch from<br \/>\neconomic stagnation in the euro zone, a major trading partner.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Already drawn to the region by attractive but waning bond<br \/>\nyields, foreigners may choose to pile in in greater numbers if<br \/>\nbubbling inflation contributes to higher returns.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Politicians, too, will be taking note, given the relative<br \/>\nsize of spending on food in the average household&#8217;s budget and<br \/>\nthe potential for hungry masses to take to the streets, as<br \/>\nhappened two years ago in Mozambique.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Compared with the food price crunch of 2008, headline<br \/>\ninflation is still moderate, but looks unlikely to stay that<br \/>\nway, especially as the price of corn is felt across the food<br \/>\nchain in southern Africa, one of the few regions where the crop<br \/>\nis mostly grown for human consumption instead of livestock.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In South Africa, the continent&#8217;s biggest economy, inflation<br \/>\nwas 5.5 percent in June compared to 11.6 percent at the same<br \/>\npoint in 2008. It accelerated to 13.6 percent in August that<br \/>\nyear.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Adds Mozambique, editing) By Ed Stoddard JOHANNESBURG Aug 10 (Reuters) &#8211; Food inflation is taking hold in southern Africa, putting pressure on some state budgets and making it hard for central banks to loosen monetary policy in the hunt for growth and jobs. U.S. drought has driven corn prices to historic peaks, and maize and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-13378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}