Pretoria, Jul 19 (IANS): The South African Reserve Bank announced it had revised up its inflation forecast for this year owing to volatility pressures.

Gill Marcus, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank, made the announcement Thursday as she released a monetary policy statement in Pretoria, reported Xinhua.

Marcus said inflation this year is expected to rise to 5.9 percent, while the central bank had previously forecast inflation to be 5.3 percent in 2013, 5.0 in 2014 and 4.6 percent in 2015.

The Reserve Bank official said the continuous losing of value of the currency rand is fuelling inflation in the country.

The mining sector did not perform well in May because it showed 0.7 percent year-on-year contraction.

There were some strikes in the mining sector this year, which would affect its production.

The Central Bank said that one of the drivers of inflation is fuel. There was a 73 cent per litre reduction in fuel price in May, but there was an 84 cent per liter increase in July.

Fuel, food and housing are some of the contributors to inflation.

Marcus said the global economic outlook still looks fragile.

The International Monetary Fund has changed their growth forecast for China from 7.8 percent to 7.5 percent, Russia from 3. 4 percent to 2.5 percent and Brazil from 3.0 percent to 2.5 percent. The three countries are the major trading partners of South Africa.

The reduction in their economic growth would mean reduction in the trade and foreign direct investment to South Africa.

Marcus said that the US recovery will be sooner than they had expected owing to measures put in place by the central bank of that country.

"The combination of slower growth in China and the stronger US dollar has impacted negatively on our commodity prices," said Marcus.