Pretoria - Business confidence rose in February, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) said on Tuesday.
Releasing its monthly Business Confidence Index (BCI), Sacci said this had accelerated surprisingly by 3.5 index points to 92.8 from 89.3 in January 2015 and follows on the 1.0 index point increase in January 2015.
“Rather than broad based, the marked increase of the BCI can be ascribed to more specific developments. Whether an increase in business confidence will generally be supported by economic and business conditions in 2015 is still uncertain,” said Sacci.
Higher import and export volumes were the main source for the latest overall rise of the BCI and although the month-on-month changes in export and import volumes were negative in February, it remained on relative high levels.
Five of the 13 sub-indices made negative month-on-month impacts in February while the financial component of six sub-indices had only one negative month-on-month impact from precious metal prices.
Eight of the 13 sub-indices were at lower levels than a year ago and had negative year-on-year impacts on the BCI.
Four of the six financial sub-indices were below the February 2014 levels and put the BCI under pressure. Two sub-indices -- namely the exchange rate of the rand weighted against the British pound, US dollar and euro, and the volume of private sector borrowing -- made positive year-on-year impacts on the BCI in February 2015. - SAnews.gov.za
