MPC Forecasts

Forecasts published by the South African Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). The forecasts are made public in the MPC press briefing every second month starting in January, for a total of six times annually.

Dataflows

There are two dataflows for this data, version 1.0.0 references the forecasts and assumptions from the SARB’s Core Econometric Model which was operationalised with the introduction of the Bank’s inflation targeting framework (in the year 2000). Notably this model had the policy rate, exchange rate, and administered prices as exogenous assumptions. It was the main forecasting model of the Bank up to and including the September 2017 MPC press statement.

From the November 2017 MPC onward the Bank has employed the Quarterly Projection Model as their main forecasting model (version 1.1.0 of the dataflow). It differs from the previous core model in that it has forward-looking agents and models the policy rate, prices and the exchange rate endogenously. Starting with the use of the QPM the MPC has made more and more of their data available in the MPC forecast report and this is reflected in the data that we make available.

Dimensions

The series key contains two concepts, each separated by a full stop.

1. Mnemonic

A somewhat descriptive ID for each series (eg. “REPO”).

2. Frequency

The time series frequencies of the time series found in the data set.

  • A: Annual
  • Q: Quarterly

Attributes

The metadata table included in the download contains the following additional columns.

  • Unit of measure – Rand, per cent, Barrels, etc.
  • Label – An English language description of the time series as a whole
  • Source ID – A QB code where available
  • Time transformation – Level (untransformed), year-on-year % change, etc.