{"id":533328,"date":"2021-10-29T10:47:24","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T08:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=533328"},"modified":"2021-10-29T10:47:24","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T08:47:24","slug":"3-charts-that-show-where-south-africa-is-heading-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/533328\/3-charts-that-show-where-south-africa-is-heading-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"3 charts that show where South Africa is heading right now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Windfall revenue from high\u00a0commodity prices\u00a0and changes to the way gross domestic product is calculated have brightened the outlook for South Africa\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

With the economy now 11% bigger than previously estimated and tax and mineral royalty revenue likely to overshoot forecasts by R169 billion ($11.2 billion), the following charts show how the country\u2019s prospects have improved.<\/p>\n

Economists in a Bloomberg survey expect a consolidated budget deficit of 7.1% of GDP in the fiscal year through March 2022, compared with the National Treasury\u2019s February estimate of 9.3% of GDP.<\/p>\n

The budget gap for the previous year, when efforts to offset the initial damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic upped spending and borrowing commitments, is also likely to have improved.<\/p>\n

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

Still, at an estimated 11.6% of GDP, it\u2019ll match the\u00a0largest shortfall on record\u00a0that was set in 1914.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana will present the government\u2019s updated projections in his medium-term budget speech on 11 November.<\/p>\n

Economists remain bullish on South Africa\u2019s 2021 recovery prospects even as Covid-19 vaccine\u00a0hesitancy – which leaves the country vulnerable to new strains of infection and stricter lockdown measures — and the resumption of rolling blackouts\u00a0threaten to weigh on output.<\/p>\n

The median estimate of 28 economists surveyed by Bloomberg is for GDP to expand 5.1%. That compares with a previous estimate of 4.7% and comes off a low base in 2020, when virus restrictions caused the economy to shrink the most in at least 27 years.<\/p>\n

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

The recovery would have been stronger, were it not for\u00a0deadly riots and port stoppages\u00a0that disrupted activity in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

With economic growth prospects seen as fragile, only a third of economists see the central bank raising its benchmark interest rate in November from a record-low 3.5%. Six out of 18 economists in a Bloomberg survey expect the South African Reserve Bank to lift the key rate by 25 basis points, while the rest see it standing pat.<\/p>\n

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

Traders differ, with forward-rate agreements starting in one-month showing a more than 100% chance of a quarter-point increase at next month\u2019s monetary policy committee meeting. Rate-hike bets\u00a0jumped\u00a0this month after the central bank warned of\u00a0upside risks\u00a0to its inflation outlook.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Ramaphosa on load shedding: \u2018We\u2019re not the only country with problems\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Windfall revenue from high\u00a0commodity prices\u00a0and changes to the way gross domestic product is calculated have brightened the outlook for South Africa\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":488667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-533328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533328","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533328"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":533350,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533328\/revisions\/533350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}