GROSS RESERVES DOWN BY OVER E1BN IN NOVEMBER

MBABANE – Gross official reserves reached E9.6 billion at the end of November 2020, lower than the E10.8 billion observed in the previous month. 

Gross reserves are foreign assets that are readily available to the country’s monetary authorities for direct financing of payment imbalances, for indirectly regulating the magnitude of such imbalances through exchange rate, and/or for other purposes.

At this level, the reserves represented a month-on-month decline of 11.1 per cent and a year-on-year growth of 34.4 per cent. The reserves were enough to cover 4.2 months of imports, lower than the 4.7 months observed in October 2020.

This is according to the Central Bank of Eswatini’s (CBE) monthly statistical release for the month of November. 

amounted

The bank’s Economic Research Policy and Statistics Executive Secretary Zanele Mamba said credit extended to the private sector amounted to E15.0 billion at the end of October 2020, improving by1.2 per cent month-on-month and by 1.8 per cent year-on-year. 

She said the increase in private sector credit benefitted from credit to other sectors as well as households and non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH). 

“However, credit to businesses declined over the review month.

 Credit to other sectors stood at E1.6 billion at the end of October 2020, reflecting an increase of 2.3 per cent month-on-month and 22.5 per cent annually. The month-on-month growth was attributed to credit by other financial corporations, which rose by 4.1per cent,” she said. 

declined

Credit to local government and public non-financial corporations, on the other hand, declined by 7.1 and 0.3 per cent, respectively. Credit extended to businesses fell by 0.2 per cent over the month and by 5.0 over the year to settle at E6.5 billion at the end of October 2020.

The decrease was mainly observed in credit to these subsectors; manufacturing (-10.4 per cent), construction (-3.0 per cent), transport and communication (-0.9 per cent), as well as mining and quarrying (-0.7 per cent). 

increase

The decline was partially counter acted by an increase in credit to the following; real estate (8.6 per cent), distribution and tourism (3.0 per cent), agriculture and forestry (2.3 per cent) as well as community, social and personal services (1.1 per cent)

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