Pretoria - South Africa's central bank Governor Tito Mboweni said on Thursday the country's household spending and credit were not immediately inflationary but warned that bank lending remained "uncomfortably high".
"The thing about household credit and spending is not so much that immediately that's inflationary ... but this level that we are talking about is clearly very high," Mboweni told a televised press conference to announce the bank's decision on interest rates.
The latest official data shows that private sector credit extension accelerated to 26.12% year-on-year in February from 24.83% in January.
Moboweni announced that the Bank's monetary policy committee has decided to keep its repo rate steady at 9.0% on Thursday, in line with expectations.
Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni said an unchanged stance continued to be appropriate despite a deterioration in the inflation outlook.
Eleven of 18 economists polled by Reuters last week had predicted the Reserve Bank would keep its repo rate steady at 9.0%, with seven predicting a 50 basis point hike.
The Reserve Bank left the repo unchanged at its February meeting after lifting rates by two percentage points between June and December last year in an effort to tame rising inflation and robust consumer spending.
