So Ivonne uh the South African consumer
consumption we're seeing it steadily up
uh based on some of these uh charts and
the research that you have. Why are we
seeing that reflected though in the
growth story?
>> Yes. So it's a good point. We're seeing
through some of the proxies including
retail sales that it's been a return to
growth uh from about a year ago and
that's been accelerating. The reason
we're not seeing it yet in the GDP
numbers is because um gross uh fixed
capital formation which is essentially
investment is still sluggish. uh it was
negative in the first quarter uh
suggesting that we haven't really seen a
recovery on the investment front but
over time as demand does uh pick up
we're expecting investment to begin to
do the same
>> let's take a look at some other
economies that uh you've dug into a bit
deeper and that is Kenya and Ghana very
different stories about the consumer in
each can you walk us through both
>> yes so in the case of um Kenya we've
seen the consumer is challenged and
struggling um that's due to a cost of
living crisis I think we saw the
escalation of that um a year ago when
there was the protests around the tax
bill. Um this is as a consumer who faced
both a high inflation post the
depreciation of the currency as well as
an increasing tax burden started to
protest and said this um was um you know
beginning to cause strain um and as a
result we've seen consumer confidence uh
decline there. It's in negative
territory um um according to Kazzy
Insights data. If we look across into
West Africa um and look at Ghana, there
has been an improvement uh particularly
over the past six to nine months in
consumer sentiment. That's reflecting
the fall in um inflation. You may recall
a couple of years ago inflation was over
uh 50% at one point in the case of
Ghana. It's now heading towards the
single digits which is very encouraging.
It's helped by the fact that terms of
trade have improved as you know they
export gold so the currency has
benefited and we're seeing inflation
fall as well as interest rates on the
back of that and that's helping improve
sentiment for the Ghanaian consumer
>> that seems like it's a bit of a sign of
an approval of what we've seen the
Mohamad administration do early on
>> true um so we have seen reforms as a
result of the new administration um but
of course they're also riding u on the
wave of debt restructuring which has
been positive uh for that particular
country uh similar to Zambia's
restructuring story. Um, so that's
helped as well.
>> So it's it it feels like there is not
one blanket term for where the African
consumer is. It really depends on it's
not even regionally based. It's it's
which economy are you talking about? Is
that safe to say?
>> Correct. It depends on domestic policy.
But if we're to talk about themes we're
seeing across the continent, the oil
importers are benefiting from lower
energy prices. So we're seeing inflation
relatively low in the case of South
Africa. uh hence our governor wanting to
uh you know preferring um to target the
lower end of the uh of the target band
of 3 to 6%. Similarly in Kenya there's
relatively uh low inflation. It's an
East African story. So that is helping
the consumer. But what's also
encouraging is that in countries that
have had doubledigit inflation such as
Nigeria um Ghana as well as Zambia we
are beginning to see a slowdown and so
over the next 6 to 12 months we're
expecting sentiment to improve in those
countries as well. Is there anything
interesting you find about Tanzania
because that is also something that
Kazzy insights tracked a bit closely.
>> True. So sentiment there has been
generally quite positive. Tanzania has
been pretty um u good at managing
inflation keeping it in the mid to low
single digits. So that's helped the
consumer. It's a positive story in terms
of its infrastructure development that's
driving growth. Um, so yes, there you're
generally seeing a a relatively stable
consumer helped by low inflation.