From Bloomberg

South Africa’s tax office is under fire from analysts from Citigroup Inc. to ETM Analytics after making unexpected data revisions that resulted in a halving of the trade deficit this year.

The South African Revenue Service said yesterday it’s adjusting trade numbers from 2010 to include exports and imports from four neighboring countries that share a customs union with South Africa. The shortfall in the first nine months of the year was lowered to 64.5 billion rand ($6.3 billion) from 126.4 billion rand.

Investors have dumped South African assets this year, sending the rand down 17 percent against the dollar, as the government battles to contain twin deficits on its trade and fiscal balances. The rand is listed by New York-based Morgan Stanley (MS) as one of the “fragile five” currencies along with those from India, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil because of their reliance on foreign capital inflows.

“The timing is a bit suspect,” Jana le Roux, an economist at ETM Analytics in Johannesburg, said by phone. “The finance minister has been talking down the notion that South Africa is part of the fragile five countries and with these more favorable trade numbers, they might say South Africa is not as fragile as the markets generally perceive it to be.”

Adrian Lackay, a spokesman for the Pretoria-based tax agency, said by phone today that “there is no other motive or purpose other than a statistical data one.” The changes were made to improve the accuracy of the figures, he said.

Written by Rene Vollgraaff/ Read more at Bloomberg