It now seems to be a regular occurrence on The Rand Today, to read about the price of something going up. If it is not fuel, it is beer or it is interest rates. I can not wait for the day I can write about the price of something going down in South Africa. From today, consumers in South Africa are going to have to pay more than they are used to for a loaf of bread. Prices are set to rise by about 40 cents a loaf. And it may not stop there as prices may continue to to go up in the future due to the rising wheat prices. Read the rest of this entry »

TATA has released the TATA Nano which is set to be one of the cheapest cars in the world. The Nano will be retailing for about R17 125 (US$2 500). The release of this car has been met with many mixed reactions from people across the world and it is already causing quite a stir in South Africa.

TATA has designed this vehicle in order to cater for millions of people across the world who previously could not afford to by a car. At the price of US$2 500, car ownership is now going to be a reality for most. The Nano is also said to be very fuel efficient, consuming only 1 litre of fuel per 20 kilometres. The standard Nano will come with no air conditioning, no electric windows and no power steering. Read the rest of this entry »

We have seen the price of fuel go up over the last couple of months in South Africa, together with the price of food. Interest rates have also been going up, it seems like the cost of everything is going up right now in South Africa and it looks like the price of beer will also be going up soon after the SAB (South African Breweries) implemented its annual price increase yesterday. But not to dishearten those beer lovers out there, the increase is not as great as the increases in everything else in South Africa.

SAB say they will increase prices by an average of 5.08%. This is much lower than the current inflation of 7.9% in South Africa. Last year, SAB only increased their prices by 2.84%. SAB have not yet announced how the price increased will be passed onto the consumer or when as the prices are set by the retailers. Read the rest of this entry »

At the end of December last year, Eskom got approval to hike its tariffs by 14.2% after the National Energy Regulator (Nersa) denied the power utility to raise tariffs by its desired 18%. Many questions have been asked to date about this hike, is it a good or bad thing? Many would say it is bad as inflation is surely going to go up as an increase in electricity prices will increases the prices of everything else. Read the rest of this entry »

There is currently a lot of violence and tension in Kenya after the presidential elections and the current situation in the East African country is not looking great at all. The loosing presidential candidate is not accepting the poll results and thus violence has broken out in the country with many deaths everyday. Kenya has been the ‘darling’ of East Africa on the economic front. It has been the country investors have been keen to invest in and now with all that is happening there, one wonders how the investors are going to feel about their investments in Kenya or any other future investments they would want to put into the country. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of us have made our new years resolutions already. For some of us it is to try achieve a better standard of life or to get a better job or simply to be healthy in 2008. Today I will look at what could be the Rands new years resolution.

“I, the Rand, hope to have a very stable 2008 whereby I can be in a position to not fluctuate as much as I did in 2007. If I am too strong, exporters will not be too happy with me and if I am weak then the importers will have a bad year. Read the rest of this entry »

For many of us Christmas is meant to be a time of celebrating, spending time with family and buying gifts. I was walking around a lot of shopping malls this Christmas in South Africa and yes, there were a lot of people shopping for gifts and queues in the large shops were longer than any other time of the year, but compared to previous Christmas periods, 2007’s Christmas ‘queues’ were shorter than before. This leaves to me to ask the question, “Why were they shorter? Did someone steal Christmas away from us?” Read the rest of this entry »