Cape Town - BankservAfrica's latest Economic Transaction Index (BETI) released on Wednesday showed that South African economic transactions conducted in April declined by close to 2 percent, indicating a slowdown in the economy.
BankservAfrica said the real change in processed economic transactions on a year-on-year basis remained negative in April, declining by 1.8 percent from March. The decline was at the same level as December 2016 and worse than the decline of -1.3 percent in March. The numbers indicate that the economy remaines under stress, the index shows.
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Mike Schüssler,the chief economist at Economists dotcoza, says, “The April BETI shows signs of slowing down after a relatively optimistic start in the first few months of the year.
"This may be due to the recent developments involving the change in the South African Finance Minister and the subsequent downgrade of the country’s economy,” says Schüssler.