Other than a highly regulated market, poor policy implementation, corruption and high political risk, a major hindrance to rapid economic growth in SA is the size of the domestic market. As Peter Bruce has asserted in this newspaper, SA lacks adequate domestic demand to propel its manufacturing sector. A careful look at the numbers on Statistics SA’s website suggests our population growth is slower than most other African countries, despite the fact the child mortality rate and HIV/AIDS-related deaths have declined substantially. It has also been reported that the white population in SA is declining due to several factors. Developing countries that do well in manufacturing are those that have large populations. Nigeria was able to overtake SA as Africa’s biggest economy due to the combined buying power of its huge population. China has had to move from a policy of one child per couple to two children per couple to mitigate the ageing population phenomenon. If SA wants to increase it...
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