{"id":349811,"date":"2019-10-29T18:00:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=349811"},"modified":"2019-10-29T17:30:43","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T15:30:43","slug":"these-graphs-show-how-wealth-in-south-africa-has-flatlined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/349811\/these-graphs-show-how-wealth-in-south-africa-has-flatlined\/","title":{"rendered":"These graphs show how wealth in South Africa has flatlined"},"content":{"rendered":"

As South Africa counts the costs of the “wasted decade”, data from banking group Credit Suisse shows exactly how the country’s wealth has stagnated over the last 10 years.<\/p>\n

According to Credit Suisse, household wealth in South Africa grew strongly prior to the global financial crisis, rising from $9,560 in the year 2000 to $25,280 in 2007 on a per-adult basis.<\/p>\n

The country exceeded its 2007 wealth level for a single year in 2010, but mean wealth has declined by US$5,000 since then, leaving it with a wealth per adult of US$21,380 in mid-2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is largely due to currency depreciation, as the rand has lost half its value since 2010,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn local currency units, wealth per adult rose 55.9% from 2010 to 2019, although after correcting for inflation there was a fall of 0.1%, i.e. virtually no change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group recorded a decline in total wealth held by the adult population in 2019 while also seeing declines in the number of wealthy individuals in the country.<\/p>\n

The graphs below outline how wealth in South Africa has flatlined since 2009.<\/p>\n

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

Total wealth in South Africa amounted to $770 billion in mid-2019 estimates, down from R787 billion recorded the year before.<\/p>\n

While wealth levels have fluctuated over the years, on a normalised path it has trended flat.<\/p>\n

Wealth per adult has trended lower over the last decade but, as per Credit Suisse’s analysis, has seen a slight upward swing in 2019, to put it back at the same levels as the end of the last decade.<\/p>\n

South Africa’s wasted years<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many analysts have labeled the last decade or so of South Africa’s history as the wasted years – referring to a period of economic stagnation at a time when global economic conditions favoured emerging markets.<\/p>\n

While South Africa’s peers in China, India, Russia, Brazil – and in CIVET economies (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Turkey) – enjoyed strong economic growth over this period, South Africa barely exceeded 1.5% per annum to end 2017.<\/p>\n

The period was marred by the prevalence of corruption and state capture.<\/p>\n

At a recent conference hosted by the Financial Times in London, president Cyril Ramaphosa told delegates that more than R500 billion may have been stolen during Zuma\u2019s nine-year tenure<\/a><\/strong>, and \u2018some people\u2019 have said the figure could exceed R1 trillion.<\/p>\n

On top of the billions lost or destroyed under state capture, South Africa has also suffered the fallout from the effects of poor governance.<\/p>\n

State power provider, Eskom is almost at the point of financial collapse<\/strong>, while load shedding has wiped billions from the economy.<\/p>\n

The stagnating economy has not provided the necessary environment for job creation, leading to record-high unemployment rates in the country<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, government policies have taken a more populist slant: threats to the independence of the Reserve Bank<\/a><\/strong>; moves to change the Constitution to allow the government to take land without compensation<\/a><\/strong>; constant changes to the country’s education system<\/a><\/strong>; and the introduction of universal healthcare<\/a><\/strong> (limiting options for private alternatives).<\/p>\n

All these factors have contributed to higher rates of emigration<\/a><\/strong>, particularly among the country’s most wealthy individuals.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: What South Africa lost in the \u201c9 wasted years\u201d under Zuma<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As South Africa counts the costs of the “wasted decade”, data from banking group Credit Suisse shows exactly how the country’s wealth has stagnated over the last 10 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":71071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[223,26],"class_list":["post-349811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-credit-suisse","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349811","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=349811"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349871,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349811\/revisions\/349871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}