François Groepe: The monetary policy outlook and challenges in South Africa

Address by Mr François Groepe, Deputy Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, at UBS's Ninth Annual Economics Conference, Cape Town, 19 October 2018.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for having me here today.

During my speech, I will discuss the outlook for the South African economy and the current stance of monetary policy. I will also touch on recent trends in the global economy and the influence that these are having on South Africa.

Global economic developments

Global economic developments can increasingly be characterised as asynchronous and risk-prone.

Growth in the United States (US) appears to be diverging from that of other advanced economies. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects growth in the eurozone, the United Kingdom (UK) and Japan to be slower in 2018 than in 2017, moderating to 2.0%, 1.4% and 1.1% respectively.1 Meanwhile, US economic growth is forecast to accelerate this year to 2.9% from an already strong level of 2.2% in 2017.