{"id":184199,"date":"2017-07-07T09:10:59","date_gmt":"2017-07-07T07:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=184199"},"modified":"2017-07-07T10:27:37","modified_gmt":"2017-07-07T08:27:37","slug":"south-africa-has-a-tough-fight-to-keep-its-title-as-africas-top-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/184199\/south-africa-has-a-tough-fight-to-keep-its-title-as-africas-top-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa has a tough fight to keep its title as Africa’s top economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt have spent the last year shuffling around as the top three economies in Africa – but with a technical recession and economic growth slowing to a crawl, SA’s spot as “Africa’s number one economy” won’t be around for much longer.<\/p>\n

The IMF recently released its World Economic Outlook for April 2017<\/a><\/strong>, showing how all the countries in the world currently sit on a number of economic indicators, as well as how they are projected to perform to 2022.<\/p>\n

As one of the most populous countries on the continent, Nigeria is hailed as the ‘GDP leader’, leveraging its population of over 185 million people to bolster its production.<\/p>\n

Since 2014, a rebasing of its GDP data put Nigeria’s economic numbers into a more up-to-date context, pushing the country to the top of the pile as Africa’s biggest economy.<\/p>\n

There were a few instances in 2016, where the Nigerian economy faltered, giving South Africa a gap to reclaim the title, but the IMF’s latest data shows that it was short-lived.<\/p>\n

Amid a crumbling economy in the wake of several political scandals in 2016 – most notably the state capture saga – South Africa was even overtaken by Egypt as the second biggest economy on the continent, though this was again reversed a few months later.<\/p>\n

Despite these ups and downs and shifts among the top three – South Africa has always been able to claim the title of “Africa’s top economy” using one key metric – GDP per capita; total wealth spread across each individual citizen.<\/p>\n

But now South Africa is at risk of losing that position as well, the IMF data shows, as it looks to be decisively beaten out by its continental competitors.<\/p>\n

Nominal GDP<\/strong><\/p>\n

Projected GDP output among the top three for 2017 looks like it will maintain the status quo: Nigeria’s projected output of $400.6 billion puts it at the top of the table, followed by South Africa’s $317.6 billion, and Egypt’s $294.1 billion.<\/p>\n

But as the countries move ahead, South Africa’s low growth rates (expected at between 0.2% and 1.0%, depending on who you ask) gives way to Egypt’s far more positive data (a growth rate of between 4.5% and 6.0% over the years) to take decisively take second place.<\/p>\n

By 2022, Nigeria is expected to still be on top with $656.9 billion, with Egypt at $416.5 billion, and South Africa trailing behind at $380 billion.<\/p>\n

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Real GDP growth<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

GDP per capita (PPP)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Looking at GDP per capita, South Africa has always maintained a strong lead over African countries – however things are about to change.<\/p>\n

In 2017, GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power parity – ie cost of living in a country), South Africa’s is still at the top at $13,410 per person, with Egypt already creeping up at $12,980 per citizen.<\/p>\n

By 2022, this picture will have changed, where Egypt will be at $16,810 per person, and South Africa at $15,220, officially losing any claim to be Africa’s leading economy using this metric.<\/p>\n

On a nominal basis (not adjusted for PPP) however, South Africa will remain in the top spot ($6,180 per person, versus Egypt’s $3,721 and Nigeria’s $3,040).<\/p>\n

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Read:\u00a0South Africa\u2019s 2017 growth prospects look bleak<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt have spent the last year shuffling around as the top three economies in Africa – but with a technical recession and economic growth slowing to a crawl, SA’s spot as “Africa’s number one economy” won’t be around for much longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":168963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26,2722],"class_list":["post-184199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline","tag-imf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184245,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184199\/revisions\/184245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}