SA consumer inflation improves

South Africa’s consumer inflation rate has shown a slight improvement.

Inflation fell slightly to 4.9% year-on-year in August from 5.1 % in July, according to the latest figures from Statistics South Africa.

On a month-on-month basis, inflation fell by 0.1 % in August, after rising 0.8%  in July.

Core inflation, which excludes the prices of food, non-alcoholic beverages, petrol and energy  fell to 4.2%, year-on-year in August, from 4.3% in July.

On a month-on-month basis, core inflation was flat at 0.0 % after rising by 0.6% in July.

Consensus expectations are for inflation to have risen to 5.2 percent on an annual basis, up from 5.1% in July.

In fixed income, the yield on the benchmark government bond due in 2026 was up 2 basis points at 9.190%.

Stocks opened higher at 0700 GMT, with the JSE securities exchange’s Top-40 futures index up 0.33%. -Additional reporting by Reuters