Economy

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Moody’s Investors Service’s brief comment on South Africa’s credit ratingsparked the rand’s strongest rally in five months on Monday and drove government bond yields to the lowest since May. More importantly, it bought President Cyril Ramaphosa more time to convince investors he has the ability to introduce reforms that would stimulate the economy, consolidate government spending and reduce corruption in Africa’s most industrialized economy. The rating company on Friday deferred a scheduled…

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa)  – For the 16th time since the 1960s, Ghana is wrapping up a financial bailout from the International Monetary Fund and stepping away from the lender’s oversight. Now, it’s up to one of Africa’s perennial overspenders to show that it can stick to a budget. The previous time Ghana was in this position was in July 2012, five months before general elections, the country recorded the first of three consecutive…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa may just be able to cling onto the stable outlook of its sole investment-grade rating this week, helping it stay clear of a forced selloff of billions of rand of its debt. Economists are divided on what Moody’s Investors Service will do when it potentially makes an announcement on South Africa’s credit assessment Friday. Half the participants in a Bloomberg survey expect it to maintain a stable…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Sub-Saharan Africa should benefit from stronger economic activity in Nigeria and South Africa this year. But we expect this recovery to be temporary. A weak investment climate and a high reliance on commodity exports will probably come back to haunt Africa’s two largest economies. Second-tier economies, such as Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Senegal are likely to keep expanding strongly in the near term, although they are testing critical…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa’s annual inflation rate rose for the first time in three months in February as food and transport prices increased. Consumer-price growth accelerated to 4.1 percent from a year earlier compared with 4 percent in January. That matched the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 17 economists. Key Insights Core inflation, which excludes the prices of food, non-alcoholic beverages, fuel and electricity, was 4.4 percent, matching the…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Fresh from his comfortable re-election, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari faces a huge hurdle to keep his vow to end the economy’s addiction to oil: win a lasting peace in the crude-rich Niger River delta. The 76-year-old former military ruler will have to score a breakthrough that’s eluded previous governments in an area where armed groups and thieves pose a constant threat to the flow of crude. To carry out his plans…

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ghana’s inflation rate edged up in February, remaining inside the central bank’s target band for an 11th consecutive month. Consumer prices rose 9.2 percent from a year earlier, compared with the record-low rate of 9 percent in January, David Kombat, the acting government statistician at the Ghana Statistical Service, told reporters Wednesday in the capital, Accra. Prices rose 1 percent in the month. Key Insights: The uptick in inflation…