The Reserve Bank of South Africa has reduced the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25% in line with market expectations, APA learnt on Monday.
In deciding this, South African Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago noted that the domestic economic outlook remained fragile.
“Despite a rebound in local GDP (growth domestic product) in the second quarter of 2019, GDP contracted in the third quarter. The fourth quarter is expected to show some positive growth,” he said.
Despite this, he added, the Monetary Policy Committee of the SARB unanimously decided to reduce the repurchase rate by 25 basis points.
However, Kganyago said monetary policy actions would continue to focus on anchoring inflation expectations near the mid-point of the inflation target range in the interest of balanced and sustainable growth.
“In this persistently uncertain environment, future policy decisions will continue to be highly data-dependent, sensitive to the balance of risks to the outlook, and will seek to look-through temporary price shocks,” the governor said.
The repo rate was last cut in July 2019.
NM/jn/APA