JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's monthly trade deficit shrunk to 5.12 billion rand in August, largely due to a big fall in oil imports, official data showed on Tuesday.
The South African Revenue Service said the monthly shortfall narrowed from July's 9-month record high 14.3 billion rand.
Compared with the previous month, exports fell by 1.43 percent to 60.4 billion rand, while imports decreased by 13.34 percent to 65.51 billion rand, largely due to a 37 percent decline in imports of minerals products, which include oil.
Economists polled by Reuters last week had forecast a deficit of 4.7 billion rand.
Analysts said while the gap had narrowed, it remained relatively large and would keep pressure on the country's ailing current account.
"It's another fairly large trade deficit and it would seem that the trade deficit for 2008 will be at least as big as last year's deficit ... we can still expect a huge current account deficit, between 7 and 8 percent, probably closer to 8 percent," Citadel economist Salomi Odendaal said.
Sustained gains in the rand between 2002 and 2005 eroded the value of South Africa's exports and attracted relatively cheap imports, widening the trade and current account gaps.
A weaker rand this year may help to boost exports, but a massive government infrastructure spending programme is expected to keep imports high, and the deficit on the current account large.
The shortfall on the current account eased to 7.3 percent of GDP in the second quarter from 8.9 percent in the first three months of the year. The deficit was at a 36-year high of 7.3 percent for 2007 as a whole.
The rand was steady at 8.2750 against the dollar after the data was released, about 0.8 percent firmer for the session, but still about 17 percent softer against the greenback so far in 2008.
SARS said the cumulative trade deficit for the first 8 months of the year was 54.4 billion rand compared to 50.8 billion rand during the same period last year.
#####THE US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US FIRMS SEEKING ACCESS TO INTERNATIONAL MARKETS, EXPORTS, JOINT VENTURES AND CAPITAL. VISIT US AT WWW.USEXPORTCOUNCIL.COM
