Although December is usually a tight month for trade conditions owing to less business-to-business trade, trade in December was noticeably better than in December 2015, says the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci).
The chamber of Wednesday released its Trade Activity Index for December, which improved to 53 points on a seasonally adjusted basis. This was an improvement on the 49 points recorded in November and the 39 points recorded in December 2015.
Respondents to the December survey cited political matters, maintenance of equipment, lack of household buying power, the weak economy and a less business-efficient empowerment strategy as some of the issues that negatively affected trade conditions.
The new orders, sales volumes, supplier deliveries and employment subindices were all lower in December.
The sales volumes subindex decreased from 59 in November to 45 in December, while the new orders subindex fell from 56 to 43 owing to the strong impact of seasonal factors.
Sales prices increased slightly while input prices eased marginally in December, Sacci noted.
Inflationary expectations for the next six months eased as both the sales and input price indices declined by five and six index points respectively.
Trade expectations remained in positive territory at 57 index points in December, compared with 55 in November.
The seasonally adjusted Trade Expectations Index however dipped to 55 from 59 in November.
Sales and new order expectations both remained optimistic at 63 and 61 in December.
The employment subindex declined further to 45 in December, from 48 in November.
The six-month employment prospects index improved from 45 to 48 but remained in negative territory.