{"id":27473,"date":"2026-03-02T12:31:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=27473"},"modified":"2026-03-02T13:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T11:32:13","slug":"attacks-on-iran-will-impact-on-sas-economy-negatively-economist","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/attacks-on-iran-will-impact-on-sas-economy-negatively-economist\/","title":{"rendered":"Attacks on Iran will impact on SA\u2019s economy negatively: Economist"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">University of Johannesburg (UJ) based Economist Dr Ntokozo Nzimande says the negative impact the Israel-Iran conflict might have on South Africa\u2019s (SA) economy includes government pausing the decrease of interest rates, as well as the increase in transport and food prices.<\/div>\n<div id=\"x_ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Nzimande has been responding to Israel and the United States (US) air bombardment of Iran, which killed, among others, that country\u2019s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Historically, the country\u2019s inflation has been heavily influenced by exchange rate fluctuations and international commodity prices, particularly oil.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) last adjusted the interest rates in November last year and the current prime lending rate is 10.25% and the repo rate is 6.75%.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>This was preceded by a series of rate cuts in 2024 and 2025.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Nzimande says the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is within Iran\u2019s territorial waters and where about 20% of global oil trade passes through, will have a negative impact on the country\u2019s economy.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>He says, \u201cIt will increase fuel prices in SA, it will raise transport and food prices, it may push inflation to even above the target and it will complicate the monetary policy decision.\u201d<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Nzimande says, \u201cYou will know that the Central Bank has been on the campaign to reduce the interest rate and if prices do go up as we expect then what will happen is that this process of cutting the interest rates will be halted or the central bank may increase the interest rate in response, which will in turn affect the SA \u00a0economy, the cost of borrowing will be high and it will prolong the financial pressure on the households and small businesses.\u201d<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\u2014SABC\u2014<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16324,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-27473","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"This was preceded by a series of rate cuts in 2024 and 2025.","form_embed":"This was preceded by a series of rate cuts in 2024 and 2025.","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27474,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27473\/revisions\/27474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=27473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}