SOUTH African consumers are in for another difficult year, with energy and fuel prices likely to surge and the central bank and government set to remove the stimulus that’s helped them cope with the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Consumer prices rose 5.9% in December, taking the average inflation rate for 2021 to 4.5%, according to the statistics office.
It’s forecast to quicken to 4.9% this year, according to the median of 21 economists’ estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
Headline inflation that’s being stoked by near record-high fuel prices and surging electricity and food costs, may prompt the central bank to raise its key interest rate on January 27, and stick to the aggressive rate-hike trajectory that its modeling shows.
The bank raised the benchmark for the first time in three years in November and its quarterly projection model, which the monetary policy committee uses as a guide, indicated
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