NEVA MAKGETLA: SA and the structural shifts in globalisation
Something odd was happening with global markets long before the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. A graph of world trade (using data from the World Bank and Oxford’s Our World In Data) abruptly levels out from 2009, after climbing inexorably from 1950.
In the 1950s and ’60s international goods markets expanded 8% a year in real terms, and 4% annually from 1970 to 2010. However, from 2010 to 2019 they shrank 3% a year on average. Whatever the ultimate outcome of this restructuring — and the past few years have taught caution about predictions — it is important to reflect on the implications for the SA economy...
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