The South African Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Committee held the repo rate at 8.25% at its July 2024 meeting. The decision was announced on 18 July 2024.
The MPC noted that headline inflation had fallen to 5.1% in June 2024, placing it within the Reserve Bank's official target band of 3% to 6%, though still above the 4.5% midpoint. The committee voted four to two to keep the rate unchanged, with two members preferring a 25 basis-point cut, and maintained its cautious stance, citing the range of domestic and global uncertainties that continue to cloud the economic outlook and the risk that easing prematurely could undermine the gains made in anchoring inflation expectations.
POLITICAL BACKGROUND
The July MPC meeting followed the formation of a Government of National Unity after the May 2024 general election, in which the African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in the country's post-apartheid democratic history. The GNU brought together multiple parties in a coalition arrangement.