{"id":40385,"date":"2026-07-23T12:49:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=40385"},"modified":"2026-07-23T12:56:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:56:40","slug":"40385","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/40385\/","title":{"rendered":"SA\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee to announce rates decision on Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"divRplyFwdMsg\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<div><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">The South African (SA) Reserve Bank\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is expected to announce its decision on interest rates in Pretoria, Gauteng province thus <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Thursday afternoon<\/span><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>In May, the bank raised the policy rate by 25 basis points to 7% while the prime lending rate jumped to 10.5%.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Inflation remains above the bank\u2019s 3% target.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Statistics SA\u2019s latest inflation print shows that inflation rose above analysts\u2019 expectations to 5% in June.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Rising fuel prices due to the United States-Iran war have been driving inflation pressures.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Head of Macroeconomic Research at Standard Bank Elna Moolman says, \u201cThis is a dilemma for the Reserve Bank because inflation is significantly higher than its 3% target and it\u2019s expected to exceed that 3% target in the coming months. But at the same time the Reserve Bank is one of the few central banks globally that have already hiked since the outbreak of the Iran war and South Africa\u2019s interest rates are already reasonably high.\u201d<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>\u201cIf the SA Reserve Bank hikes interest rates further, we expect this to be the hiking cycle and we still think that once the war is over and oil prices are significantly and sustainably lower, the Reserve Bank could start unwinding these interest rate hikes,\u201d explains Moolman.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\u2014SABC\u2014<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30025,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-40385","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Inflation remains above the bank\u2019s 3% target.","published_date":"","news_description":"Inflation remains above the bank\u2019s 3% target.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40385","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":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40391,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40385\/revisions\/40391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=40385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}