SA’s February CPI down to 4%

Statistics South Africa has released the February consumer price inflation figure, which declined to 4% year-on-year compared with CPI of 4.4% in January.

But month-on-month, consumer price inflation rose in February from 0.3% to 0.8% in January.

This keeps inflation comfortably within the Reserve Bank’s target band of inflation between 3.6%, and could support the bank’s move to cut interest rates by 0.25% next week.

Meanwhile, the same time the bank has announced a widening current account deficit to 2.9% of gross domestic product in the fourth quarter.

This is compared with a deficit of 2.1% of GDP in the third quarter.

A current account deficit means that a country imports more goods than it exports.