A South African business confidence index fell in May, hitting its lowest level since September 2020 on factors including lower trade volumes, higher financing costs and power cuts. Read: Intervene now, or load shedding could increase ten-fold The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry said on Tuesday that its business confidence index fell to 89.3 in May from 93.7 in April.
“It might take a while for the economy to recover and gain momentum given prevailing global economic conditions and structural economic challenges that followed on the lockdown regulations,” SACCI said in a statement. South Africa saw devastating floods in the coastal KwaZulu-Natal province in April, which left hundreds dead, thousands homeless and caused billions of rands of damage to infrastructure which disrupted exports and imports.