South Africa Current A/C Deficit Widens

South Africa’s current account deficit continued to widen in the first quarter, to 2.1% of gross domestic product from 1.7% in the previous quarter, BusinessLive reported. That is still less than half the 5% deficit seen a year ago, in the first quarter of 2016. The current account deficit widened to R92 billion ($7.07 billion) in the first quarter of 2017, from R76 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016, and compared with a Trading Economics consensus forecast of R85 billion. This was based on a widening in the shortfall on the services, income and current transfer account—to R149 billion from R132 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016. The trade surplus was sustained for a second quarter, widening from R56 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016 to R57 billion in the first quarter of 2017. In the reserve bank’s quarterly bulletin, released on Tuesday, the bank said: “The higher trade surplus resulted from a slight increase in the value of the net gold and merchandise exports more than fully offsetting the marginal increase in the value of merchandise imports.”