Tag: Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The South African mining industry has performed poorly over the past ten years, with its contribution to the national GDP having halved since 1994. Year-on-year production fell by 3,3% in January, according to Statistics South Africa, with downtime, power outages and uncertainty around regulatory policies significantly hamstringing the sector’s production.

Before you earn a cent, government takes a chunk out of your pay packet in taxes. Today, Saturday 18 May, marks Tax Freedom Day 2019 - the day from when the money you earn belongs to you to fund your and your families' activities and wellbeing.

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) reported on May 14th that South Africa’s unemployment rate increased from 27.1% of the labour force in the fourth quarter of 2018 to 27.6% during the first quarter of 2019.

Stats SA recently announced South Africa’s unemployment rate has increased to 27.6%. The expanded rate increased to 38%, which translates to 9,994,000 unemployed people.

Discovery CEO Adrian Gore mentioned at the recent Leadership Summit that there is an element of 'declinism' - a pessimism about the state of one’s country - in South Africa, and that it did not accurately represent the situation facing our country.

It was clear going into this Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) that is was going to be much tougher than previous years, simply because economic growth and tax revenues are so much worse than had been forecast.

The 2018 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) will be a key determinant for SA’s credit ratings. A Moody’s Investors Service credit ratings decision was initially scheduled for 19 October 2018. Moody’s is now expected to release its statement on South Africa's sovereign credit rating after Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivered the MTBPS.

Every earner is taxed. Through one kind of tax or another, government takes a bit out of everyone’s earnings. This means everyone is forced to spend some months working for government. Tax Freedom Day is the day on which average South African income-earners at last start working for themselves, the day on which they have finally paid their tax bill in full.

Craig Pheiffer | Chief Investment Strategist | Absa Stockbrokers & Portfolio Management | prmedia@absa.co.za | www.absa.co.za | The Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) - often referred...

Africa’s economic outlook improved in 2017 compared with 2016 and is expected to gain momentum in 2018. GDP growth in 2017 is expected at 3.0% up from 2.2 in 2016 and projected to expand to 3.7% in 2018.