Economists had been expecting something of a bounce in the economy in 2017, after a bad year in 2016. But the latest GDP figures from Statistics SA suggest this year might not be quite so bouncy — after 2016 was worse than most expected. It turns out the economy grew just 0.3% in 2016, if growth this can be called, when the population is growing by 1.7% a year. That means that we have now been going backwards as a nation, in per capita terms, for three years. And though most economists have been forecasting that the economy will grow faster this year, none of the estimates is as high as 1.7%. And the IMF, whose 0.3% forecast for 2016 has proved to be accurate, is forecasting 0.8% for 2017. So while it may be churlish to argue about decimal points, we could be below 1% again. At least SA is not Brazil, which posted an eighth consecutive quarter of actual negative growth, with the economy contracting by 3.6% in 2016 following a 3.8% contraction in 2015. But Brazil’s recessionary woes ...
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