Given the recent uptick in the US-Iran military exchange and BMI’s shift to a ‘messy negotiation scenario’, the research unit will be reviewing its forecasts over the coming week, but does not anticipate making “significant revisions” to its South African ones for the year.
This was highlighted by research firm BMI sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) country risk senior analyst Lara Wolfe, speaking in the company’s “Sub-Saharan Africa Macroeconomic Update: Resilience Despite Challenging Global Environment” webinar on July 21.
“At 1.1%, our forecast is already below consensus and, in addition, the stronger-than-expected first-quarter growth, provides some buffer against a modest deterioration in external shifts,” she said.
Wolfe pointed out that the main forecast changes would likely be monetary policy and inflation, with the prominent risk stemming from oil prices.
“Our oil and gas team are likely to revise up our annual price forecast and our expectations for when oil prices will peak – this will likely push on our own expectations of when South Africa’s domestic inflation will peak, which we previously anticipated was going to be in June,” Wolfe explained. She added that this would, in turn, impact on BMI’s monetary policy forecast.
