The South African Reserve Bank urged the government to address structural impediments such as record power cuts and poor infrastructure that are undermining its work by constraining supply, restraining economic growth and rapidly pushing up prices, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank is “meant to respond to short term cyclical issues — but if the structural issues don’t change, what happens in this economy is that it behaves all the time like it is over-heating,” Deputy Governor Fundi Tshazibana said in an interview on Saturday.

South Africa’s strained public finances are hindering economic growth and a return to lower inflation, the country’s central bank cautioned on Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported. “Reducing public debt to sustainable levels can deliver a triple dividend, namely lower cost of capital, reduced debt-service costs and lower inflation,” the South African Reserve Bank said in its six-monthly Monetary Policy Review. The comments come ahead of a Nov. 1 update on the nation’s budget outlook by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.

South Africa's overall mining profits slipped by more than $5 billion in the last financial year, while the country that was once the world's largest gold producer might have less than 30 years of a viable gold industry left without renewed investment, according to a new report by big four auditing firm PwC, the Associated Press reported. The report released Tuesday also estimated that South Africa's iron ore mining industry may only last 13 more years without further commitment from companies to identify, pursue and extract new deposits.

South Africa’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged, while signaling that borrowing costs are likely to stay higher for longer because of persistent inflation risks, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary policy committee maintained the rate at a 14-year high of 8.25% for a second consecutive meeting, Governor Lesetja Kganyago said at a briefing north of Johannesburg on Thursday. That matched the median estimate of 26 economists in a Bloomberg survey. “The job of tackling inflation is not yet done,” Kganyago said. “Risks remain.

The Foschini Group Ltd.’s turnaround of South African discount clothing chain Jet is grabbing the attention of a larger rival as competition for the lower end of the market intensifies, Bloomberg News reported. TFG, which acquired Jet three years ago, has refurbished the stores, revitalized the chain’s supply base and added its home-furnishing brand — Jet Home — to 78 of the almost 464 outlets across the country. Jet’s former owner, Edcon Holdings Ltd., was teetering on bankruptcy and didn’t spend on expansion, said TFG Chief Executive Officer Anthony Thunström.

South Africa's central bank has warned of risks to the country's financial stability, due to capital outflows and the possibility of sanctions following a U.S. diplomat's accusation of supplying weapons to Russia to aid its campaign in Ukraine, Reuters reported. These risks, along with the threat of a grid failure due to repeated power cuts and persistent high inflation, have increased the systemic risks to the financial system, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) said in its biannual health check on Monday.

South Africa needs to urgently fix energy, transport and security challenges if it is to reverse souring investor sentiment, executives said on Thursday as President Cyril Ramaphosa targets 2 trillion rand ($111 billion) in new investments over the next five years, Reuters reported. Executives were speaking at the South African Investment Conference in Johannesburg, launched by Ramaphosa in 2018 as a way to boost economic activity that had been in decline for over a decade in Africa's most advanced but struggling economy.

South Africa’s economy probably entered a technical recession with a second straight quarterly contraction, according to an index that tracks interbank payments, Bloomberg News reported. The BankservAfrica Economic Transactions Index, an early indicator of economic activity, dropped 1.7% in the first quarter compared with the prior three months. A median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts is for a quarterly gross domestic product expansion of 0.2%.

South Africa and Nigeria have been placed on a global financial watchdog’s so-called gray list denoting nations with shortcomings in tackling illicit financial flows, a move that scars their international reputations and may raise costs for banks and asset managers, Bloomberg News reported. The decisions were announced by the Financial Action Task Force on Friday. While South Africa’s inclusion on the list was widely flagged as a risk, the possible addition of Nigeria attracted little attention. Morocco and Cambodia were taken off the list after improving their controls.