The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) Business Confidence Index (BCI) declined by 2.1 index points to 92.8 in November, after having recovered slightly to 94.9 index points in October.
The improvement in October was mainly driven by greater social stability and favourable developments with regard to global commodity prices and a more responsible economic and business approach to lockdowns in response to waves of Covid-19 infections.
The November decrease, the chamber explained on December 8, was owing to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the looting mayhem in July, which subsequently put a brake on the upward momentum and had a negative impact on business and investor confidence.
Although still substantial, Sacci said, lower merchandise foreign trade resulted in both import and export volumes dipping on a month-on-month and year-on-year basis.
The Sacci BCI averaged 94 index points for the first 11 months of this year and was 8.2 index points higher than the 85.8 average for the corresponding period in 2020.
Besides the negative impacts during the year, Sacci said the main positive contributions on a month-on-month basis came from more new vehicles sold.
On a year-on-year basis, the main positive impacts were made by increased equity prices on the JSE, increased real value of building plans passed, and more new vehicles sold.
However, the current lockdown and restrictions from external and foreign sources was a blow to economies starting to emerge from the devastation of the Covid virus.
Sacci, therefore, welcomed the manner in which the South African government was handling the restrictions with due consideration of the economic, fiscal, business and health implications.
However, the chamber criticised the manner in which the initial announcement on the Omicron variant was made.
“The disclosure by South African scientists sparked greater concern and negatively impacted on the business climate. These announcements should be made with greater circumspection taking account of broader implications,” it said.
“Hopefully the rushed decisions by other countries on travel restrictions will be tempered as more information on the Omicron variant emerges.”