AGFACTS Newsbrief Summary - April 2011

·       The year-on-year appreciation in the nominal effective rand rate of exchange (smoothed) has moved to 5.2% as at the end of March.

·       The overall trend in the year-on-year price increases of agricultural machinery has now turned marginally upwards.   The current overall year-on-year decrease in prices (smoothed) is now 4.2%.

·       The second production estimate for maize for the 2010/2011 season is 11.831 million tons.   This is 15.5% less than the production of 12.815 million tons in the 2009/2010 production season.

·       Tractor sales for March 2011 were 32.3% up on those of March last year.   Year-to-date sales are 20.5% up on those for the first three months of last year.

·       Year-to-date (3 month) self-propelled combine harvester sales are 7.5% lower than those of last year for the same period.