The Bureau for Economic Research, which conducts the inflation expectations survey on behalf of the Reserve Bank, found that analysts, business people and trade unions anticipated inflation to come in 6.3%, up from 6.1% in 2023 and 5.8% in 2024.
However, food inflation increased to its highest level since May 2008 to 13.4%. This was more than double the upper limit of the central bank’s target. "Although the Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Committee will likely be comforted by the easing headline inflation and steady core CPI inflation, we believe it will be worried about the implication of rising food inflation on wage settlements.
In an interview, Sasfin’s David Shapiro explains the volatility of global markets and the reason behind the selloff after news about the biggest bank collapse since the financial crisis in 2007/08. The failure of the Silicon Valley Bank fuelled already existing jitters about high inflation. He said: