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New Delhi: The Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc in the world, the latest count being more than 15,34,98,053 cases and 32,16,383 deaths.
We highlight some of the important stories from around the world. Nine Customs workers were fired on 2 May for refusing to get a jab of the Covid-19 vaccine in New Zealand. The number of people in South Africa saving their money has increased even in the middle of low interest rates, trend analysts have revealed.
Israel records fewest Covid cases in a year
Israel’s health ministry revealed Sunday that the country reported 13 new coronavirus cases Saturday. Israel hasn’t registered this low a number of cases since last May, reports
Savings rise amid Covid fallout
In the past year, the number of people saving their money has increased even in the midst of some of the lowest interest rates, a trend analysts say is very unusual. Savings increased by 3.36 percentage points from February last year to February 2021, according to data from the South African Reserve Bank.
Data from the bank showed that individual retail deposits from February 2019 to February 2020 stood at 8.75%. The same deposits then increased to 12.11% in February 2021. The data also showed that in 2020, gross savings by households was 2% of GDP, compared with 1.2% in 2019.
But South Africa has a low savings rate. The gross nominal savings rate was measured at 15.9% in September 2020, compared with 11.1% in the previous quarter. But this is low compared with the world average of 25.1%.
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