{"id":553228,"date":"2022-01-26T10:29:58","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T08:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=553228"},"modified":"2022-01-26T10:29:58","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T08:29:58","slug":"imf-cuts-south-africa-growth-forecasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/553228\/imf-cuts-south-africa-growth-forecasts\/","title":{"rendered":"IMF cuts South Africa growth forecasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its 2022 growth forecasts for South Africa on the back of a softer-than-expected second half in 2021 and a weaker outlook for investment, as business sentiment remains subdued.<\/p>\n

In its global outlook report published on Tuesday (26 January), the global monetary group said that it now expects South Africa’s economy to grow by 1.9% in 2022. This is down from its October forecast of 2.2%.<\/p>\n

The IMF expects growth to further slow to 1.4% in 2023. On a more positive note, the group estimates that South Africa’s GDP grew by 4.6% in a rebound from 2020’s Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown losses.<\/p>\n

The twin pressures of tighter Covid-19 lockdown restrictions and a spate of civil disorder in July led to the economy contracting in the third quarter of 2021, Statistics South Africa said on 7 December.<\/p>\n

After recording four consecutive quarters of positive growth, real gross domestic product (GDP) slumped by 1.5%, eroding some of the economic gains the country has made since the severe impact of Covid-19 in the second quarter of 2020. Statistics South Africa is expected to publish its Q4 and full-year GDP results on 8 March 2022.<\/p>\n

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The lower than expected growth is in line with other country revisions, as the global economy enters 2022 in a weaker position than previously expected.<\/p>\n

“As the new Omicron Covid-19 variant spreads, countries have reimposed mobility restrictions. Rising energy prices and supply disruptions have resulted in higher and more broad-based inflation than anticipated, notably in the United States and many emerging market and developing economies,” the IMF said.<\/p>\n

“The ongoing retrenchment of China\u2019s real estate sector and slower-than-expected recovery of private consumption also have limited growth prospects.”<\/p>\n

The IMF said global growth is expected to moderate from 5.9% in 2021 to 4.4% in 2022\u2014half a percentage point lower for 2022 than in the October World Economic Outlook (WEO), largely reflecting forecast markdowns in the two largest economies.<\/p>\n

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Read: The businesses hit hardest by liquidations in South Africa right now \u2013 with jobs not coming back<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its 2022 growth forecasts for South Africa on the back of a softer-than-expected second half in 2021 and a weaker outlook for investment, as business sentiment remains subdued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":481453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,2722],"class_list":["post-553228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-imf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553228","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=553228"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553248,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553228\/revisions\/553248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}