SOUTH Africa’s current-account deficit widened more than expected in the fourth quarter of 2023, as dividend and interest payments to foreign investors resulted in the biggest outflow since the second quarter of 2022.
The overall balance on the current account, the broadest measure of trade in goods and services, expanded to an annualised deficit of 2.3% of gross domestic product, or R166 billion ($8.8 billion), from a revised 0.5% of GDP in the prior quarter, the South African Reserve Bank said in a statement on Thursday.
The median estimate of eight economists in a Bloomberg survey was for a shortfall of 1.2% of GDP. South Africa has now posted a current-account gap for a seventh straight quarter. — Bloomberg