Business confidence in the final quarter of the year was the lowest in over seven years, according to new figures released on Wednesday.

Although the figures were steady, they still indicated that the country's economy was in dismal shape.

According to the Business Confidence Index (BCI) of Rand Merchant Bank and the Bureau for Economic Research (RMB/BER), the index remained almost unchanged at 33, compared to 34 in the third quarter.

However, the last time the index was this low was during the first quarter of 2001.

It was possible that the RMB/BER BCI would decline further "once there is a realisation that the drop in business activity was not temporary and the global financial turmoil increasingly hits home through weaker foreign import demand and lower investment," said Rudolf Gouws, chief economist at Rand Merchant Bank.

GDP figures released on Tuesday were also not encouraging -- as they dropped to a ten-year low of 0.2 percent in the third quarter.

Adding to the economy's woes, the reserve bank has raised interest rates six times to 12 percent since June 2007, crippling consumer spending.

The reserve bank's monetary policy committee is due to meet in December, but most economists do not expect a rate cut then, seeing  February 2009 as the time when rates will be cut by 50 basis points.