STORY: South African Reserve Bank releases 2024 Monetary Policy Review
SHOOTING TIME: April 24, 2024
DATELINE: April 27, 2024
LENGTH: 00:02:52
LOCATION: JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the meeting
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): LESEJA KGANYAGO, Governor of SARB
3. various of the meeting
4. SOUNDBITE 2 (English): WITNESS SIMBANEGAVI, Economic Research department of the South African Reserve Bank

STORYLINE:

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) released its 2024 Monetary Policy Review on Wednesday, indicating that headline inflation is only expected to return to the mid-point of the target band in the last quarter of 2025.

South Africa's inflation target range is 3 to 6 percent. The report said that amid slower-than-expected disinflation in food and volatility in fuel prices, headline inflation had fluctuated in the range of 5-6 percent over the past six months.

In terms of growth, the SARB anticipates that real GDP will increase to 1.2 percent this year.

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): LESEJA KGANYAGO, Governor of SARB
"Importantly, inflation which was seen as a huge policy challenge of the day at the time, at least for central banks, is very much still with us. It remains the overarching policy challenge today.
We remain resolute in fulfilling our primary mandate to maintain price stability in the interest of balance and sustainable growth. Our policy actions will always seek to anchor inflation and inflation expectations at all closer to the midpoint of our target band."

SOUNDBITE 2 (English): WITNESS SIMBANEGAVI, Economic Research department of South African Reserve Bank
"Our inflation remains above the mid-point of the 3-6% target range, which means we are yet to come back to target. And this means that while in terms of the drivers of this persistence of infection, it has mostly been food and also the volatility in fuel prices, but recently we have seen core inflation rising above the mid-point and close about 5 percent in February and March mostly driven by services inflation. So in terms of the general message that we are trying to communicate, inflation remains high, which means policy has a lot of work to do to try to bring inflation back to the target."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa.
(XHTV)