The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has announced that the COVID-19 lockdown has detrimentally affected the release of the June Quarterly Bulletin and two statistical documents.
The bulletin will now be released on 16 July.
The macroeconomic statistics, published by the SARB in the Quarterly Bulletin, are compiled by integrating statistics released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).
On 17 April 2020, Stats SA announced that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics for the first quarter of 2020 would be released on 30 June 2020, instead of the original release date of 2 June 2020.
In a statement on Monday, the SARB said its Economic Statistics Department has always met its statistical commitments regarding original release schedules, in accordance with the International Monetary Fund’s Special Data Dissemination Standard.
“However, the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the compilation of certain economic statistics due to the difficulties experienced in the collection of data from respondents,” the central bank said.
These delays, the SARB said, will impact on two other statistical releases.
“The release of the current account of the balance of payments (BOP), which follows that of the GDP by two working days, has changed from 4 June 2020 to 2 July 2020,” reads the statement.
The external debt and international investment position statistics originally scheduled for 31 March 2020 will now be released on 16 July 2020 to coincide with the release of the June 2020 Quarterly Bulletin, as these statistics are dependent on the BOP statistics. – SAnews.gov.za
