Economists generally agree that monetary policy should be primarily concerned with the pursuit of price stability. However, they still differ on how this objective can be achieved most effectively. This debate remains unresolved, but a growing number of countries have adopted inflation targeting as their monetary policy framework. In 1990 New Zealand was the first country to implement this strategy. It was soon followed by a number of other industrialised and emerging-market economies, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Sweden and the United Kingdom.In February 2000 it was announced that formal inflation targeting would also be adopted in South Africa as the monetary policy framework. Before this announcement “informal inflation targeting” was already applied by the South African Reserve Bank. Considerable emphasis was placed on the attainment of price stability, but the time period over which this would be achieved was not specified. At first the framework also differed from formal inflation targeting because an intermediate target, the growth in money supply, anchored monetary policy decisions. Later, towards the end of the 1990s, the Reserve Bank moved to “eclectic” or “pragmatic” inflation targeting. In this framework, developments in the monetary aggregates were still regarded as vital elements in the inflation process, but the Bank closely monitored developments in other financial and real indicators in reaching a decision on the appropriate level of short-term interest rates.​