March 22, 2017/Reuters

South Africa’s headline consumer inflation slowed to 6.3 percent year-on-year in February from 6.6 percent in January, data from Statistics South Africa showed on Wednesday.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 6.3 percent year-on-year inflation print.

On a month-on-month basis, inflation rose to 1.1 percent from 0.6 percent previously.

Core inflation, which excludes the prices of food, non-alcoholic beverages, petrol and energy, inched lower to 5.2 percent year-on-year in February from 5.5 percent and rose to 1.1 percent on a month-on-month basis from 0.3 percent.

(Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by James Macharia)