South Africa’s central bank, the South African Reserve Bank, has unexpectedly kept its key interest rate unchanged at 7%. This decision was made by the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on Thursday.
Reasons Behind the Decision
The MPC stated that its policy stance was appropriate for now after hiking rates at its last meeting in May. Four members of the MPC supported the decision to maintain the policy rate, while two favored an increase of 25 basis points.
The majority of economists polled by Reuters had expected a 25-basis-point rate increase after renewed hostilities between Iran and the United States in recent weeks sent global oil prices sharply higher. The South African Reserve Bank targets inflation of 3% with a tolerance band of 1 percentage point either side. Annual inflation accelerated to 5.0% in June from 4.5% in May.
Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
