ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: All eyes on Mboweni's maiden budget speech
The medium-term policy statement will take centre stage this week, overshadowing inflation data, writes Sunita Menon
Just over two weeks into the job, finance minister Tito Mboweni will deliver the medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS) this week, just a day ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s much anticipated investment conference. The MTBPS will be delivered against a backdrop of economic underperformance and a constrained fiscal space. Economists say Mboweni will largely stick to former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene’s script. Importantly, the statement will be one of the key determinants of whether SA retains its investment-grade status from credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service. Moody’s is the last of the three major credit rating agencies to have credit rating at investment-grade level, currently with a stable outlook. Standard and Poor’s (S&P) and Fitch Ratings both downgraded SA to junk status in 2017 in response to the surprise cabinet reshuffle and an unfavourable mid-term budget in October. “We believe that the 2018 MTBPS will stick to the script ushered in by the 2018 bu...
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