{"id":2553,"date":"2009-05-29T00:52:44","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T22:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=2553"},"modified":"2009-05-31T11:09:21","modified_gmt":"2009-05-31T09:09:21","slug":"interest-rate-drops-by-another-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/accommodation\/interest-rate-drops-by-another-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Interest rate drops by another 1 %"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Cash-strapped South Africans are delighted that the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni,\u00a0decreased the interest rate by 1 % point, to 7,5 %, yesterday.<\/p>\n

Mboweni announced the interest rate cut a day after the official announcement that South Africa is in a recession, having experienced two successive quarters of negative economic growth.\u00a0\u00a0 The economy contracted by 6,4 % in the first quarter of 2009, Mining and Manufacturing taking the biggest knocks, at 33 % and 22 %, respectively.\u00a0\u00a0 The category “Wholesale, retail, restaurants and hotels” had the smallest decrease, at 2,5 %, while the construction sector grew by 9 %, reports The Times<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Mboweni made his announcement against the background of a downward inflation trend, expected to average\u00a06,9 % this year and 5,5 % in 2010, with food inflation\u00a0peaking at 17 % but slowing down\u00a0(Mboweni\u00a0blamed a food cartel for the high food inflation); the second quarter is expected to\u00a0have a lower negative growth rate compared to the first quarter; and the global downturn is showing “tentative signs” of “bottoming out”, according to Moneyweb<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The interest rate cut is the fifth since Mboweni started cutting the interest rate\u00a0in December 2008.\u00a0\u00a0 Consumers are hoping for a drop in the price of petrol next Wednesday too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cash-strapped South Africans are delighted that the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni,\u00a0decreased the interest rate by 1 % point, to 7,5 %, yesterday. Mboweni announced the interest rate cut a day after the official announcement that South Africa is in a recession, having experienced two successive quarters of negative economic growth.\u00a0\u00a0 The economy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[7,20],"tags":[1423,1425,27,1424,708,1422,6,727,29,13,840],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t