The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its expected economic growth rate forecast for South Africa for 2021.
It now expects the country’s economy to grow by 5% this year, rather than the 4% it forecast in July. The South African Reserve Bank expects economic growth of 5.3% for 2021.
Growth is expected to slow to 2.2% next year and is unlikely to be significantly more than that – on current trends – as the government seems uninterested in implementing much-needed economic reforms.
However, the global body slightly downgraded its expectations for global growth, saying that the planet’s economic output would be an expected 4.9% for 2021, rather than the previously estimated 5%. Although this may seem like a marginal change, this decrease is due to large drops in the economic output estimates of individual countries, primarily those that have struggled to secure access to Covid-19 vaccines.
Said the IMF: ‘The outlook for the low-income developing-country group has darkened considerably due to worsening pandemic dynamics.’