EDITORIAL: Own goals shrink SA’s economy in the second quarter
Amid fears that the global economy will head into recession, SA’s economy has recorded a negative quarter — but one that, depressingly, was more the result of self-inflicted woes than global ones.
The economy contracted 0.7% in the second quarter, after an unexpectedly strong bounce in the first quarter. The result is that in the first half of 2022, the economy was just 1.4% larger than in the first half of 2021 — and is now back below pre-Covid-19 levels. More optimistic economists will stick with their full-year forecasts of more than 2%; more sober ones expect growth of hardly more than 1.7%-1.8% for 2022. And the medium-term outlook is even more sobering, with most forecasting that the economy will remain at 1%-2% for a good while yet, in an environment in which load-shedding could well continue until 2025...
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