JOHANNESBURG, May 8 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's economic performance has improved in April as an official index measuring interbank transactions reached to the highest level in eight months.
BankservAfrica, the country's largest clearing house, said Wednesday that the BankservAfrica Economic Transactions Index (BETI), which measures all interbank economic activity, hit 134.2 in April, improving by 0.6 percent on a monthly basis and reaching the level recorded in August last year.
Load shedding was suspended since the end of March, which could have had a positive impact on economic activity in April, while spending in preparation for the upcoming elections might have also played a role, said Shergeran Naidoo, BankservAfrica's head of stakeholder engagements.
In April, the standardized nominal value of transactions cleared through BankservAfrica subsided to 1.29 trillion rand (about 69.4 billion U.S. dollars) from a month ago, while the number of transactions increased to 157 million, growing from 156.1 million in March, according to Naidoo.
While other developments in the economy are also reflected in the performance of the BETI, election-related spending could make a meaningful impact on the index, BankservAfrica said in its report, adding that there are still multiple challenges facing the South African economy, including the wait-and-see approach by investors. ■