Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus has announced that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has decided to decrease the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5 %.
The prime rate would decline to 8.5 %, which is good news for the South African consumer, who is reeling under the weight of food, electricity and petrol price increases.
The committee had looked at a range of issues such as the inflation figures, the global economy outlook and the Rand/Dollar exchange rate when they met this week.
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The MPC had kept the repo rate at 5.5% for the last nine meetings.
Most economists had expected the MPC to keep the repo rate unchanged. – SAnews.gov.za