{"id":32622,"date":"2026-04-21T15:24:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T13:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=32622"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T13:24:19","slug":"middle-east-conflict-dents-sa-business-confidence","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/middle-east-conflict-dents-sa-business-confidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle East conflict dents SA business confidence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\">Business confidence in South Africa (SA) weakened in March to 131.3 points due to the impact from the war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">The drop in sentiment follows a modest recovery in February when the index rose to 134.6 after recording a level of 131.4 at the start of 2026.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">However, the South Chamber\u00a0\u2060of Commerce and Industry&#8217;s Business Confidence Index still reflected stronger activity in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>Month-on-month, the drop in sentiment between February to March was mainly due to external factors including a weaker Rand, lower share price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and declining global precious metal prices among other influences.<br \/>\nIndependent economist John Loos explains that confidence in March was still higher than a year ago.<\/p><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;I think the decline was definitely to be expected given what has happened globally with global markets and a lot of it related to the middle east conflicts. We know oil prices have risen, and we know that the Rand came under pressure as soon as the conflict started.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13481,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-32622","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Business confidence in South Africa weakened","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32622","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\/32622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32623,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32622\/revisions\/32623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}