The South African Reserve Bank's (SARB's) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on Thursday decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 7.0 percent. This is in line with consensus expectations in the marketplace.

Economists react to the interest rate decision:

Carmen ALtenkirch, Nedbank:

"Despite a dovish statement, which highlighted the 'tentative' nature of the recovery and the slight deterioration in recent economic data, the MPC opted to keep rates unchanged.

"The committee appears to have adopted a similar stance to that taken at last month's meeting, opting to wait and see whether indications that the global and domestic economy are continuing to recover will be confirmed, or whether August's weaker manufacturing and retail figures are a reversal of the positive trend.

"We still believe that there is one more cut this cycle — although predicting the exact timing will be difficult.

"Should the economy continue to shed jobs, which will put further downward pressure on domestic demand over the coming months and dampen the recovery, the MPC may believe that it would be prudent to cut rates again."

Mike Schussler, Economists.co.za:

"I think we have now reached the bottom of the cycle. I think we are going to see interest rate hikes during the middle of next year. We are also going to have to get used to higher inflation rates."

Freddie Mitchell, Efficient Group:

"It was mostly expected, there was nothing surprising. Like the Governor said, there are still upside risks to inflation and that is why it was left unchanged."

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