Political distractions no impediment to growth in SA in 2017, bank forecasts
Politics will be a big distraction for SA in 2017, but the country’s economic growth should still be better than in 2016, Japanese investment bank Nomura said in an outlook for the coming year released on Thursday SA’s economic growth will accelerate slightly to about 1% in 2017 from 0.5% in 2016, Nomura head of emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa economics Peter Attard Montalto forecasts. "The key narrative remains negative per capita income growth," he wrote in a research note. The good news is that inflation will fall back under government’s 6% ceiling to average 5.6%, and that the Reserve Bank is likely to hold the repo rate flat at 7% over 2017. The bad news is that SA will get downgraded to junk status, and that the ANC’s "tenderpreneur faction" will place Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as presidential candidate for 2019, if Attard Montalto’s predictions are correct.
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