The link between South Africa’s economy and Africa
For a number of years the South African economy has led the pack on the African continent. This trend was disrupted by the emergence of the Nigerian and Egyptian economies in recent years. While South Africa now lags behind Nigeria as the second biggest economy in Africa, there is no doubt that the country continues to play an important economic role on the continent.
South Africa has always been able to claim the title of “Africa’s top economy” using one key metric: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, which is the total wealth spread across each individual citizen.
While South Africa has come to be known as an important emerging power on the African continent, there have been some concerns that trade between the country and other nations on the African continent is not as high as it could be.
Various nations across the African continent accounted for 30% of South Africa’s total exports in 2015.
More about the link between South Africa’s economy and Africa:
South Africa has a well-developed financial and investment sector compared to the rest of Africa. Further hurdles faced by other countries on the African continent include bureaucratic delays, high poverty, declining manufacturing sectors, a huge infrastructure gap and policy uncertainty.
Economic policy uncertainty remains a key concern. This has been a major contributing factor to the reason why South Africa has joined the large number of countries within the sub-investment group in Africa.
In South Africa, one of the hindrances to more trade with other African countries is that structural reform is a fundamental problem.
Measures that can go a long way towards improving economic growth include consistent economic policy messages across government, as well as expanding access to broadband.
On the negative side when it comes to the link between South Africa’s economy and Africa, research has shown that the dominant view across Africa is that South Africa does not use its platforms through BRICS and G20 to create or provide opportunities for wider African involvement.