{"id":830322,"date":"2025-07-02T17:18:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T15:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=830322"},"modified":"2025-07-02T17:18:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T15:18:23","slug":"another-bleak-year-as-south-africas-growth-prospects-cut-in-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/830322\/another-bleak-year-as-south-africas-growth-prospects-cut-in-half\/","title":{"rendered":"Another bleak year as South Africa&#8217;s growth prospects cut in half"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa must accelerate structural reforms to offset global challenges that include US President Donald Trump\u2019s trade war, the African Development Bank said as it cut the nation\u2019s economic forecast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It lowered its forecast for Africa\u2019s most-industrialized economy to a meager 0.8% this year from a previous estimate of 1.6%, the Abidjan-based lender said in an update to its Country Focus Report for South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is mainly on the fact that we expect trade tensions to pretty much affect net exports negatively,\u201d AfDB country economist Akhona Peter said on Wednesday at an event near Pretoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other risks to the outlook include funding cuts for development assistance and an economic slowdown in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa\u2019s Treasury in May trimmed its growth forecast for the year to 1.4% from a prior 1.9%, citing geopolitical tensions including Trump\u2019s trade levies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The US is South Africa\u2019s second largest export destination after China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The country faces a 31% US import tariff which is expected to be reinstated on July 9 after it was initially postponed. Trump&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-07-01\/trump-dismisses-extension-of-july-9-tariff-deadline-hits-japan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a>&nbsp;on Wednesday that he is not considering delaying them again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIndustries such as agriculture, which rely heavily on US market access, will be particularly vulnerable,\u201d the AfDB said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn the short-term, this could slow economic activity, decrease firm profitability, and constrain job creation in export-linked industries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Domestic risks to the economic outlook include \u201cinfrastructure gaps electricity shortages, logistical bottlenecks, and fiscal vulnerabilities arising from the bailout of state-owned enterprises,\u201d the lender said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa must accelerate structural reforms to offset global challenges that include US President Donald Trump\u2019s trade war, the African Development Bank said as it cut the nation\u2019s economic forecast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":814856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[7690],"class_list":["post-830322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-african-development-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830322","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=830322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830324,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830322\/revisions\/830324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}