\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Business confidence in December 2012 improved to 93 points from 91.7 points in November 2012, said the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Notes:<\/strong> Hands up if you think this increase in confidence could have something to do with the visit by a certain portly gentleman from the North Pole?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe BCI improved from 91.7 points in November 2012 to 93 in December 2012, but it is still not at a convincing level to investors.<\/p>\n \u201cThe BCI was 6.1 points below its December 2011 level but remains better than the substantial 8.5 year-to-year difference in March 2012,\u201d said Sacci.<\/p>\n Although the December 2012 figure improved slightly, the 4th quarter of 2012 was the poorest performing quarter of the year.<\/p>\n Despite the pace of decline in business confidence having moderated during the year, the level at the end of 2012 was still \u201cunacceptably low\u201d, Sacci noted.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven that 2010 is the current BCI base year (at 100 points), the deterioration to an average of 94.1 for 2012, after averaging 119 in 2006, gives an indication of the extent of erosion of local business confidence in recent years,\u201d said Sacci.<\/p>\n Positive contributions to business confidence on both a monthly and an annual basis came from manufacturing and construction activity, while all the financial sub-indices had a positive impact with the exception of the rand exchange rate.<\/p>\n The rand was positive on a monthly basis but negative on an annual basis, contrasting with new vehicle sales which were negative on a monthly basis but positive on an annual basis.<\/p>\n Municipal services, import volumes and retail sales made negative contributions to the BCI on both a monthly and annual basis.<\/p>\n There were signs of a possible recovery in certain real activities towards the end of 2012. Exports volumes, real credit extension, new vehicle sales, manufacturing output and building plans passed all improved on levels of a year ago.<\/p>\n \u201cThe promise of improvements in confidence will only realise if the threats of continued labour protest activity, already revealed in the early days of 2013, are dealt with decisively.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first step towards a more conducive business environment in 2013 is for the socio-economic partnership between government, business and labour to urgently realise a commonality of approach in responding to South Africa\u2019s current socio-economic crisis,\u201d said Sacci. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za <\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Business confidence in December 2012 improved to 93 points from 91.7 points in November 2012, said the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) on Wednesday. Editor\u2019s Notes: Hands up if you think this increase in confidence could have something to do with the visit by a certain portly gentleman from the North Pole? \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"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":[1289,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-17307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mype","8":"tag-port-elizabeth-2","9":"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\/17307","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}