Inflow from SACU receipts slightly improves foreign reserves

The stock of international reserves rose slightly at the end of October to N$31.6 billion at the from N$31.4 billion at the end of September, according to statistics from the country’s central bank.

The Bank of Namibia, Tuesday released the Money and Banking Statistics for October 2017 and attributed the rise in the level of reserves mainly due to inflows from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) receipts.

Namibia is a member of the five-nation customs union and relies heavily on revenue from SACU, with about a third of the 2017/18 total budget expected to come from SACU receipts alone.

Meanwhile, the central bank in the statistics said that overall inflation slowed during October 2017 and the country’s annual inflation rate stood at 5.2% in October 2017, a 0.4 percentage point decrease compared to the preceding month.

According to the central bank, the main drivers of the slowdown were clothing and footwear, augmented by furnishings household equipment and routine housing maintenance as well as communications.

“Similarly, food and nonalcoholic beverages slowed by 0.5 percentage point. On the other hand, inflation in the transport category rose by 0.5 percent point, compared to the previous month,” the Bank of Namibia said.

According to the Bank of Namibia, the increase in the transport category was driven by an increase in the price of vehicles.