{"id":749518,"date":"2024-02-07T09:56:18","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T07:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=749518"},"modified":"2024-02-07T10:23:14","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T08:23:14","slug":"economists-agree-on-one-thing-and-its-not-good-for-south-africans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/749518\/economists-agree-on-one-thing-and-its-not-good-for-south-africans\/","title":{"rendered":"Economists agree on one thing &#8211; and it&#8217;s not good for South Africans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Economists expect GDP growth to improve slightly in 2024 &#8211; but not enough to keep up with the growing population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Nedbank Group Economic Unit, the International Monetary Fund, Deloitte Africa, and Investec have all predicted that South Africa&#8217;s GDP will grow by 1% in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although this should beat the expected 0.5% growth seen in 2023, it is not keeping up with the growth in the population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;<strong>South Africa\u2019s population growth rate has been exceeding its economic growth rate, resulting in its individuals becoming poorer<\/strong>, reducing the ability also of government to collect high tax revenues and substantially increase the social wage,&#8221; Investec Chief Economist Annabel Bishop said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Av9FA5ut2i\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/747078\/south-africans-are-poorer-despite-a-jump-in-take-home-pay\/\">South Africans are poorer &#8211; despite a jump in take-home pay<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;South Africans are poorer &#8211; despite a jump in take-home pay&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/747078\/south-africans-are-poorer-despite-a-jump-in-take-home-pay\/embed\/#?secret=mF2mD3XJJ6#?secret=Av9FA5ut2i\" data-secret=\"Av9FA5ut2i\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Bishop said that the improved global outlook, with the fears of a global recession dying off, resilience from large emerging markets and Asia&#8217;s improved overall growth trajectory, should support an acceleration in South Africa&#8217;s own growth rate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, like the experts mentioned earlier, she said that freight constraints and load shedding will continue into 2024, potentially limiting growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition, severe crime continues to limit South Africa&#8217;s economic performance, with the <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/746597\/south-africa-seen-as-more-corrupt-than-ever-before\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)<\/a> showing that South Africa&#8217;s CPI has dropped over the last five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the 180 countries on the list, South Africa dropped to its lowest ranking since the index was created, ranking 83rd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa&#8217;s score dropped by two points from 2022, receiving a score of 41\/100 in 2023. A score below 50 highlights strong corruption problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-wp-embed is-provider-flourish wp-block-embed-flourish\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" title=\"Interactive or visual content\" src=\"https:\/\/flourish-user-preview.com\/api\/canva\/embed\/visualisation\/16627765\/5QSPPtiJndUCn20sf6rVwp_RjkLkWFi3rOxbWbrxx5Akg7Wh9HBI9fzqsPWBfKXj\/#?secret=rKqSj5vExC\" data-secret=\"rKqSj5vExC\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" height=\"575\" width=\"500\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The region\u2019s persistent challenges stem from decades of severe underfunding in public sectors, exacerbated by corruption and illicit financial flows siphoning resources away from basic public services,&#8221; the report said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Corruption will continue to thrive until justice systems can punish wrongdoing and keep governments in check; When justice is bought or politically interfered with, it is the people that suffer,&#8221; said the chair of Transparency International, Fran\u00e7ois Val\u00e9rian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bishop said that weak growth of 1.0% will not make any significant inroads in addressing the nation&#8217;s high unemployment, nor will anything below 5.0%. However, South Africa is far from seeing this as the state continues to crowd out the private sector economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"uwHLDeDctp\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/748086\/south-africa-is-kicking-the-growth-can-down-the-road\/\">South Africa is kicking the growth can down the road<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;South Africa is kicking the growth can down the road&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/748086\/south-africa-is-kicking-the-growth-can-down-the-road\/embed\/#?secret=jEgXs8RgTF#?secret=uwHLDeDctp\" data-secret=\"uwHLDeDctp\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/747064\/south-africas-most-exclusive-credit-cards-and-how-much-you-need-to-earn-to-qualify\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">South Africa\u2019s most exclusive credit cards \u2013 and how much you need to earn to qualify<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa is expected to avoid a recession this year &#8211; but what little growth is registered will be nowhere near enough to keep up with the country&#8217;s needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":661711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[14355,26,2722,1498,1799],"class_list":["post-749518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-deloitte-africa","tag-headline","tag-imf","tag-investec","tag-nedbank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749518","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749518"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":749602,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749518\/revisions\/749602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}