{"id":47011,"date":"2026-10-01T14:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=47011"},"modified":"2026-10-01T14:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:30:12","slug":"sa-rate-setting-committee-has-full-complement-for-first-time-since-2018","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-rate-setting-committee-has-full-complement-for-first-time-since-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"SA rate-setting committee has full complement for first time since 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"x_x_ms-outlook-mobile-body-separator-line\">\n<div data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">The South African (SA) central bank&#8217;s interest-rate setting \u200bcommittee has a full complement for the first \u200ctime since 2018, after it announced economist Franz Ruch as its seventh member on Thursday.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"x_x_ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The SA Reserve Bank (SARB) said in a \u200bstatement that Ruch had started on October 1 \u200bas an adviser to the governors and Monetary Policy \u2060Committee (MPC) member.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The MPC, which meets roughly every two months \u200bto set interest rates, consists of up to seven SARB \u200bofficials.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But it has had fewer than that for years after some senior officials resigned. The bank said previously it wanted to appoint \u200bmore members to the MPC but was looking for \u200bthe right people.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The last MPC meeting where seven members were present was \u200cin \u2060September 2018, a SARB Spokesperson told\u00a0<i>Reuters<\/i>.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Ruch has rejoined the SARB from the World Bank, where he served as a senior economist and contributed to research and publications including \u200bthe Global Economic \u200bProspects report.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Before \u2060that he worked in the SARB&#8217;s economic research department, where he helped develop economic \u200bmodels and contributed to the bank&#8217;s Monetary Policy \u200bReview.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>At \u2060last week&#8217;s interest rate announcement, the MPC raised its policy rate for the second time this year, saying the Iran war \u2060had \u200bcreated &#8220;large and sustained&#8221; price shocks and \u200btighter monetary policy was needed.<\/div>\n<div>The bank&#8217;s next interest rate announcement is due in \u200bmid-November.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":41459,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-47011","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The MPC, which meets roughly every two months \u200bto set interest rates, consists of up to seven SARB \u200bofficials.","published_date":"","news_description":"The MPC, which meets roughly every two months \u200bto set interest rates, consists of up to seven SARB \u200bofficials.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47011","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":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47013,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47011\/revisions\/47013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=47011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}