South Africa sees CPI target staying as range

Bloomberg

South Africa’s central bank is unlikely to officially pursue a single point-inflation target soon even though it prefers to anchor price growth close to the 4.5 percent mid-point of its goal range, an adviser to Governor Lesetja Kganyago said.
The target range of 3 percent to 6 percent allows for flexibility in protecting the economy from price shocks, Fundi Tshazibana, who is also a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, said in
an interview at Bloomberg’s office in Johannesburg.
The bank increased its key interest rate for the first time in more than two years in November, saying a delay on tightening could entrench inflation expectations at higher levels and spur a stronger monetary-policy response in future. It held the rate in January as plunging crude costs and rand gains improved the bank’s price-growth outlook.
“For now, the range basically gives us the same latitude that we would have because even if you have a point target, you need to give yourself space for some level of deviation from the point,” she said. “You can read the point target now as 4.5 give or take 1.5 on either side.”
The target range was first announced in the 2000 budget. Consumer prices rose 4 percent in January from a year earlier, the slowest pace of increases since March and the 22nd consecutive month that the rate was within the band.