South Africa producer inflation at more than 1-year low

Annual producer inflation in South Africa has eased to 2.8% in August from 4.2% in July, data by Statistics South Africa showed.

It has been the lowest annual rate in more than a year.

Last month, inflation slowed mostly for coke, petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products (2.1% YoY from 5% YoY in July).

Price increase also slowed down for:

– non-metallic mineral products (1.7% YoY from 3.6% YoY in July);
– metals, machinery and computing equipment (3.5% YoY from 4.9% YoY in July);
– paper and printed products (2.3% YoY from 4.1% YoY in July).

In the meantime, cost of transport equipment continued to decrease (-1.7% YoY versus -0.9% YoY in July).

The USD/ZAR currency pair settled 0.49% lower at 17.0751 on Friday. For the week, the exotic currency pair went down 1.64%, as it extended the losses from the prior two weekly periods.