PPI In South Africa Goes Unchanged at 5.2%

“South Africa’s producer-price inflation rate was unchanged in November, giving the Reserve Bank room to keep interest rates low to stimulate growth.

The cost of goods leaving factories and mines rose 5.2 percent in November from a year ago, Pretoria-based Statistics South Africa said on its website today. The median estimate of 12 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 5.5 percent. Prices increased 0.3 percent in the month.

“The down-side surprise would feed into relief” for consumer prices, Carmen Nel, a Cape Town-based analyst at Rand Merchant Bank, said by phone. “Input cost pressures, significantly from the rand, seem to be largely absent.”

The Reserve Bank has held the benchmark repurchase rate at 5 percent since July. Consumer-price inflation was unchanged at 5.6 percent last month, the statistics agency said yesterday. The bank’s goal is to keep inflation within a range of 3 percent to 6 percent…”

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