UNION CONGRESS
SA not headed for recession but growth is vital, says Pravin Gordhan
The finance ministers says, bar an external shock, SA will avoid recession in 2017 despite political, geopolitical and economic uncertainty
SA is not likely to slip into a recession despite the tepid global economy, but the country’s economy is not expected to grow much more than 1.8% by 2018, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Monday. Gordhan told delegates at the 10th national congress of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA in Cape Town that SA was entering 2017 amid political, geopolitical and economic uncertainty. However, he said unless an external shock occurred, a recession would not be likely. "We don’t expect to go into a second recession. We believe we are recovering as an economy, unless there is some kind of external shock. The exchange rate with the current performance of the currency also means we export cheap." Gordhan said many of SA’s challenges were informed by the state of the global economy, including the recession of 2008, the slowdown of economic growth in China and the potential effect of the British referendum on that country’s membership in the EU.
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