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Heeft de wereld economie en de instabiliteit invloed op de economie van Z A en in welke mate ?
http://africa.reuters.com/business/news/usnJOE49R0BN.html
S.Africa's Manuel warns against policy shift
Tue 28 Oct 2008, 9:54 GMT
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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has warned against adopting leftist policies after next year's elections and said the current global turmoil had introduced vulnerabilities to the economy.
“We need to disabuse people of the notion that we will have a mighty powerful developmental state capable of planning and creating all manner of employment,” he told the Financial Times in an interview published on Tuesday.
"It may have been on the agenda in 1994 but it could not be delivered now. The next period is likely to see a lot more competitiveness in the global economy.
The ruling ANC and its allies pledged after an economic summit two weeks ago to create 5 million jobs by 2014, to slash unemployment still high at around 23 percent.
Labour and communist voices have become influential within the ANC since they helped to elect Jacob Zuma to the party's presidency.
The powerful COSATU labour federation and small, but influiential Communist Party, want a shift away from former President Thabo Mbeki's market friendly policies, demanding more relaxed fiscal and monetary policy.
But analysts say turmoil in global markets and the risk of the world recession will led to slower economic growth this year and leave little room for the new government to manoeuvre policy.
The National Treasury said the deteriorating global envirnoment will help slow economic growth for 2008 to 3.7 percent and 3.0 percent next year from 2007's 5.1 percent expansion.
Worries over a wide current account deficit and risk aversion have seen investors dumping South Africa for less-risky markets.
The rand has lost as much as 40 percent to the dollar this year stoking inflation fears at a time when consumers are are also under pressure from interest rates that have risen by 5 percentage points in the past two years.
Manuel told the Financial Times that as the dollar and borrowing costs become more expensive, South Africans might have to curb their appetite for imported goods.
“A lot of it (has been) financed by debt, easily financed to white South Africans and now as easily extended to high-income black South Africans,” Manuel said.
