{"id":43093,"date":"2026-08-19T12:59:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T10:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=43093"},"modified":"2026-08-19T12:59:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T10:59:27","slug":"sa-inflation-cools-for-first-time-in-five-months","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-inflation-cools-for-first-time-in-five-months\/","title":{"rendered":"SA inflation cools for first time in five months"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>South Africa&#8217;s (SA) inflation rate slowed \u200cfor the first time in five months in July, partly due to a steep drop in fuel costs, but analysts said it \u200bcould soon climb again as renewed United States (US) and Iran hostilities had \u200bsince driven global oil prices higher.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Headline inflation in \u2060Africa&#8217;s largest economy eased to 4.3% year-on-year, lower than the \u200b4.5% predicted by economists polled by Reuters and June&#8217;s 5.0% \u200breading, Statistics SA data showed, opens new tabon Wednesday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The agency attributed the slowdown to three main factors: softer food inflation, lower municipal tariff increases and a \u200bdecline in fuel prices.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation fell \u200bto its lowest level in more than 16 years, reaching 0.9% in \u200cannual \u2060terms, largely due to cereals and meat.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Municipalities implement tariff increases in July each year, and most categories saw smaller increases than in 2025.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Petrol prices decreased by 7.1% and diesel by \u200b11.7% between June \u200band July, \u2060pulling the annual rate for fuel down to 20.6% from 34.3% in June.<\/div>\n<div>Inflation remains above \u200bthe central bank&#8217;s 3% target.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>August&#8217;s inflation reading comes \u200bout \u2060on the same day as the bank&#8217;s next monetary policy announcement on September 23.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Central bank surprised investors and economists by keeping rates \u2060unchanged in \u200bJuly, saying its policy was restrictive \u200benough to return inflation to its target within two years.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21188,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-43093","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"SA inflation rate slowed \u200cfor the first time","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43093","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\/43093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43094,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43093\/revisions\/43094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=43093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}