{"id":14509,"date":"2012-09-12T04:15:11","date_gmt":"2012-09-12T02:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/update-3-s-africa-suffers-shock-current-account-deficit-hit\/"},"modified":"2012-09-12T04:15:11","modified_gmt":"2012-09-12T02:15:11","slug":"update-3-s-africa-suffers-shock-current-account-deficit-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-3-s-africa-suffers-shock-current-account-deficit-hit\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 3-S.Africa suffers shock current account deficit hit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Current account deficit balloons to 6.4 pct of GDP<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Mining unrest may hit Q3 GDP -central bank<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Manufacturing rebounds in second quarter but outlook bleak<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Xola Potelwa<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, Sept 11 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s current<br \/>\naccount recorded its largest deficit in nearly four years in the<br \/>\nsecond quarter of 2012 as exports fell because of subdued<br \/>\nexternal demand that is likely to hit manufacturing throughout<br \/>\nthe rest of the year.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The central bank also said labour unrest in the mining<br \/>\nsector &#8211; in particular, fallout from the police shooting of 34<br \/>\nstriking miners at a platinum mine last month &#8211; might cause<br \/>\neconomic growth to slump in the third quarter. A 30 percent rise<br \/>\nin mining output propped up the economy in the second quarter.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In its latest Quarterly Bulletin, released on Tuesday, the<br \/>\nbank said the current account gap widened to 200 billion rand<br \/>\n($24.5 billion) or 6.4 percent of GDP from 4.9 percent in the<br \/>\nfirst quarter, while state spending on wages pushed gross<br \/>\ndomestic expenditure to 4.7 percent.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Economists had expected a deficit of only 4.7 percent<br \/>\nbecause of record portfolio flows into South Africa&#8217;s domestic<br \/>\ndebt market ahead of its inclusion in the prestigious Citi World<br \/>\nGovernment Bond Index (WGBI) on Oct. 1.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Bond yields have hit a string of record lows since the WGBI<br \/>\ninclusion was announced in April, with index-tracking investors<br \/>\nforced to increase their holdings of South African debt.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Current account deficit balloons to 6.4 pct of GDP * Mining unrest may hit Q3 GDP -central bank * Manufacturing rebounds in second quarter but outlook bleak By Xola Potelwa JOHANNESBURG, Sept 11 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s current account recorded its largest deficit in nearly four years in the second quarter of 2012 as [&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-14509","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\/14509","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=14509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}