Friday, 21 February 2014

Heed World Bank advice on exports

SOMETIMES it takes outsiders to tell us what we know perfectly well ourselves — but fail to act on.
The World Bank’s latest analysis of South Africa’s export competitiveness says little that has not been said before. But it is timely, given the high current account deficit that has made South Africa so vulnerable to emerging market currency gyrations.

It frames its views in terms of South Africa’s expressed commitment, in the National Development Plan, to an export-led job-creating growth path. And it is sharper than many other analyses of our export failures and what should, in theory, be done.

In practice, it’s not clear what will be done, even though the government recognises most of the problems the World Bank identifies and claims to have policies in place to do something about these.

The Bank’s economists point out that South Africa’s export growth has stagnated in real terms over the past decade and that South Africa’s exporters have made only limited inroads into global markets.

On the upside, sub-Saharan Africa has emerged as the key destination for our nonmineral exports, but exports to these markets are still smaller and shorter-lived than exports to traditional markets.  READ MORE

Source: www.bdlive.co.za   #IFAMAFRICA

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