South Africa Q2 business confidence unchanged at 41 points

Reuters
People work on machines at a clothing factory at an industrial town of Newcastle, 260 km (162 miles) southeast of Johannesburg May 8, 2013. REUTERS/Jon Herskovitz

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's quarterly business confidence index was unchanged at 41 index points in the second quarter of the year, indicating the majority of companies were still unhappy with operating conditions in Africa's most advanced economy, a survey showed. The Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) survey, conducted by the Bureau for Economic Research (BER), has hovered around the 40 mark for over a year. Manufacturing sentiment dropped to 2009 levels. "The RMB/BER BCI remaining unchanged at a low 41 points may well be reflective of the economy already being in a technical recession," RMB said in a statement, adding however that GDP should still expand in 2014. "If the services sector, coupled with agriculture and construction more or less maintain their first quarter growth momentum, a return to more normal conditions in the platinum industry would give the economy a kicker in the second half of the year", Ettienne Le Roux, economist at RMB said. Platinum producers have been hit by a wage strike now 5 months old, which contributed to a contraction in GDP in the first quarter.