SA inflation ticks up to 4.5% in September as transport costs explode, but there is good news
South Africa’s inflation rate edged up to 4.5% in September as transport costs surged 10.8% year on year, but subdued food inflation offered some relief to consumers.
In September, South Africa's annual consumer price inflation rose to 4.5% from 4.4% in the previous month, primarily due to a surge in transport costs. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures, released by Stats SA, revealed that transport contributed 1.5 percentage points to the month's inflation. Many key analysts had predicted a rise in CPI to around 4.6% to 4.7% year-on-year, but the actual figure was lower.
Transport costs increased by 10.8% year-on-year, while the price of petrol went up by R6.13 per litre and 500ppm diesel by R10.66 after the Middle East war. However, the story had a silver lining, as food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation increased by just 1.2% year-on-year and fell by 0.1% month-on-month. Health costs rose by 3.2% year-on-year, while insurance and financial services rose by 5.4%, and housing and utilities contributed 5.2% to overall CPI inflation.
Rental inflation slowed from 4.1% to 3.9% year-on-year, which was a positive development. Johann Els, a senior economist at PSG, stated that there was still no clear indication of second-round inflationary pressure. He expects inflation to reach slightly above 5% in October and November, but base effects should begin to bring inflation down from around April next year.
Els anticipates that by the second half of 2027, inflation could drop to around 3%, or even lower, depending on the extent of the decline in oil prices and the subsequent reduction in petrol prices.
Written by urgent.news from IOL's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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