THE South African Reserve Bank (SARB) on Thursday raised its main repo rate to 6.25% from 5.5%, highlighting the pressure on emerging-market central banks to keep up with the U.S. Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening.
Three members of the committee preferred the announced increase while two members preferred a 100 basis points increase.
Thursday’s increase means that the South African Reserve Bank has raised its repo rate by a total of 2.75 percentage points this year in an effort to stabilize the rand currency even as weak growth in Africa’s most developed economy appears to be keeping a lid on inflation.
Data from South Africa’s statistics office this week showed that consumer price inflation eased to 7.6% in August from 7.8% in July, although still above the SARB’s target range of annual inflation of between 3% and 6%.
The bank slightly revised down its forecast for South Africa’s economic growth this
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