such as the fifa world cup. 2. hosting of mega events the wave of globalisation that has swept across the world for more than two decades has had an impact on communities beyond the economic and financial spheres. it has also impacted on the way in which global communities interact in areas such as education and sport. as the world becomes increasingly integrated, more opportunities have emerged for countries to host and organise what today have become known as mega events. since 1994, south africa has become an important venue for hosting such events. hosting major sporting, cultural and economic events is of significance for many countries since it can provide an important catalyst for growth and development. as a result of this potential, professionals from various disciplines such as marketing, finance, economics and tourism have shown increased interest in understanding the dynamics of hosting mega events. today, universities in the united states of america, the united kingdom and australia offer courses on various aspects of sport education, including sport marketing and sport tourism. this trend is also becoming evident in south african tertiary education and is likely to intensify in the future. south africa has had its fair share of hosting major sporting events since 1994 such as the african cup of nations in 1994, the rugby world cup in 1995, and the cricket world cup in 2003. in addition, south africa has also hosted major conferences which have attracted global interest. the most important of these have inter alia included the united nations conference on sustainable growth in 2002 which attracted more than 60 000 delegates, as well as the united nations conference on racism in 2001, to mention but a few. major conference and convention centres have been built in most of our major cities and most of them have had a high degree of utilisation. this year, the south african reserve bank in collaboration with the south african national treasury will be hosting the g - 20 meeting of ministers of finance and central bank governors. preparations for this meeting will be ongoing for most of the year. preparatory meetings are held both in south africa and other member countries. these events will attract high level officials to south africa from the world ’ s most important economies. three major meetings will be held in south africa during the course of this year. apart from successfully hosting these events, south africa has also bid to host the two most important global sporting spectaculars, namely the 2006 fifa world cup finals and cape town ’ s bid to host the 2004 olympic games. south africa narrowly failed to win these bids, but fortunately our second attempt to host the fifa world cup

exacerbated the shock to prices of oil, gas and some inputs into food production, such as fertilisers, added to the global inflation problem. even a country like south africa, where supply constraints did not originate, faced price pressures from more expensive imports, shortages of key inputs, elevated shipping 1 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches costs and the depreciation of the rand as financial markets repriced the outlook for global interest rates. worldwide inflation pressures have forced broad - based and, in many cases, unusually fast monetary policy normalisation. where do we stand now? thankfully, some of the shocks that caused the global inflation surge have begun to abate, albeit at a slow pace. energy and agricultural commodity prices have fallen. shipping costs have largely normalised ; other input prices have slowed significantly too. yet, in many countries, inflation remains far above target and is showing signs of persistence in several sectors. this is particularly the case in non - housing services, where prices are highly dependent on wage growth, but also in some consumer goods. in south africa, headline inflation also remains above the upper end of the target band, though it has been gradually moderating since the latter part of 2022 – primarily driven by a decline in fuel prices from the peaks observed mid - 2022. however, we are not completely out of the woods yet. domestic fuel prices have been rising, albeit moderately, and there is a risk that we could see further increases in the coming months, largely as a result of exchange rate volatility. this shows that the domestic inflation outlook is still susceptible to global factors, exacerbated by domestic conditions, of course. in south africa, food price inflation has yet to peak, despite the decelerating trend observed in global agricultural commodities. domestic meat prices are still accelerating, reflective of lingering supply constraints in the beef market following last year's outbreak of foot and mouth disease. while these constraints are expected to gradually unwind over the near term, persisting electricity supply issues - and the need for costly energy alternatives - will keep raising input costs for food producers in industries such as poultry and dairy farming. these may be passed through to consumers. although core inflation has come in lower than our expectations over the past two months, we still caution that it remains above the midpoint of the south african reserve bank's ( sarb ) target of 3 - 6 %. in fact, our baseline view is that core inflation particularly core