{"id":16000,"date":"2012-10-30T20:15:07","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T18:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/10\/mining-unrest-threatens-s-africa-growth\/"},"modified":"2012-10-30T20:15:07","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T18:15:07","slug":"mining-unrest-threatens-s-africa-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/mining-unrest-threatens-s-africa-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Mining unrest threatens S.Africa growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">PRETORIA<\/span> Oct 30 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s economic growth<br \/>\nis likely to take a hit in the second half of this year from the<br \/>\nworst mining unrest since apartheid, but the inflation outlook<br \/>\nremains evenly balanced, the Reserve Bank said on Tuesday.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In its bi-annual monetary policy review, the central bank<br \/>\nsaid the mining strikes, which have hit gold and platinum output<br \/>\nsince August, suggested lower growth for the third and fourth<br \/>\nquarters of 2012.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Economic growth picked up to 3.2 percent in the second<br \/>\nquarter of the year.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>While employment levels had increased up to the middle of<br \/>\n2012, the strikes suggested a worsening of job prospects, it<br \/>\nsaid.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Treasury last week cut its growth forecast for Africa&#8217;s<br \/>\nbiggest economy to 2.5 percent for 2012 from 2.7 percent seen<br \/>\nearlier, citing the impact of the mining strikes, the most<br \/>\ndamaging since white-minority rule ended in 1994.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The impact will be exacerbated if confidence weakens<br \/>\nsignificantly in other sectors of the economy,&#8221; the Reserve Bank<br \/>\nsaid.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Bank lowered its own growth forecast to 2.6 percent in<br \/>\nSeptember, warning then that labour unrest could hit investment<br \/>\nand undermine record loose monetary policy.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Interest rates are at four-decade lows after the central<br \/>\nbank reduced its benchmark repo rate to 5 percent in July,<br \/>\nciting a benign inflation outlook.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday the Reserve Bank said inflation was still<br \/>\nexpected to remain in the upper level of the 3-6 percent target<br \/>\nband and should settle down into a flat trajectory over the<br \/>\n2013-14 forecast period.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Upside pressure in coming months is expected to emanate<br \/>\nfrom oil and food price increases, despite demand pressures<br \/>\nremaining relatively benign,&#8221; the bank said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>It added that the rand &#8211; which fell to nearly 9.00 against<br \/>\nthe dollar in the worst of the strikes &#8211; also posed an inflation<br \/>\nrisk.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa; Editing by Ed Cropley)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PRETORIA Oct 30 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s economic growth is likely to take a hit in the second half of this year from the worst mining unrest since apartheid, but the inflation outlook remains evenly balanced, the Reserve Bank said on Tuesday. In its bi-annual monetary policy review, the central bank said the mining strikes, [&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-16000","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\/16000","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=16000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}