1. The 66th meeting of the Central Bank of Lesotho's Monetary Policy Committee(MPC) was held on the 25th July 2017. The Committee considered international, regional and domestic economic and financial markets conditions, as well as the Net International Reserves(NIR) developments and outlook.
2. Global economic activity continued to show signs of recovery during the period to July 2017. The positive performance in advanced economies emanated mainly from Japan and United Kingdom, while economic activity from the Euro Area and United States (US) remained subdued. Economic growth rates are still generally lower than those in the pre-financial crisis period, averaging around 2 per cent for advanced economies and 4.5 per cent for emerging market economies. The recent strong performance of the Chinese economy at 6.6 per cent contributed to the resilience in emerging markets activity. Closer to home, the South African economy registered two successive quarters of negative growth of 0.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent in December 2016 and March 2017, respectively. Outlook has deteriorated with growth projections having been revised downwards from 1.0 per cent to 0.5 per cent, and from 1.5 per cent to 1.2 for 2017 and 2018, respectively.
