The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry's (Sacci's) Business Confidence Index (BCI) increased by one index point to 92.7 in November.
"The upward movement in November was specifically driven by the foreign trade performance as merchandise trade volumes of exports and imports were notably better than the previous month," Sacci said on Thursday.
It pointed out that five sub-indices had improved on the October readings, while four sub-indices had declined and four had remained stable.
Three of the seven economic activity sub-indices had contributed positively to the BCI, while two of the six financial sub-indices had made positive impacts.
However, despite the month-on-month improvement, the BCI was still 3.4 points lower than in November 2018.
"The dollar price of precious metals was the only noteworthy sub-index that pushed the BCI higher in November 2019 compared with a year ago," Sacci pointed out.
It added that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Article IV statement released after the regular IMF staff visit had mentioned the already known problems at State-owned enterprises, fiscal deficits and low economic growth.
"The IMF proposes that obstructions to growth be removed, weaknesses attended to and to rebuild policy manoeuvrability – notably in the public sector and fiscal policy in general. The ultimate goal should be to expedite structural reform that could continuously enhance private investment and participation.
"The difficulty in decision-making aimed at the inevitable structural adjustments necessary to let the economy perform better, are still lacking. The effect of indecisiveness and the time lapses to taking action are going to impact critically on the economy and, therefore, business and investor confidence as year-end approaches," Sacci noted.