The South African economy continues to show signs of slowing down according to the latest BankservAfrica Economic Transaction Index (BETI), which found that economic transactions in July tracked lower across all reporting periods.

The BETI is the broadest indicator of actual economic activity in the South African economy and is based on interbank transaction data excluding salary and card exchanges.

The economic transactional data, according to Shergeran Naidoo, head of stakeholder relations at BankservAfrica, declined by 0.4% for July on a year-on-year basis, 1% down from the three months prior and by 0.3% in comparison to June’s figures.

“The relevance of the BETI is that it is a strong indicator that people are under pressure and have adjusted their spending behaviour to weather the economic headwinds,” he said.

“The BETI transactional value for July was 127.3. This is lower than any reading since March 2017.”

“All of these show that the gains made in the economy in the second half of 2017 and in the first months of 2018 have been lost,” added Mike Schüssler, chief economist at Economists.co.za.

“These are not positive for economic growth particularly for addressing key concerns such as rising unemployment. The economy is caught between a slow growth and slow decline place and South Africa is not benefiting (from) the surge in economic growth currently being experienced in the rest of the world.”

One would assume the current data suggests leadership changes in government has not yet had the positive impact one would have hoped for, Schüssler said.

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