Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan won praise on Wednesday for a balanced, positive budget that held state spending on track without raising taxes.
The new Treasury boss adjusted the growth forecast for 2010 to 2.3
percent of GDP, rising to 3.6 percent in 2012, but warned that South
Africans would continue to feel the pinch of the recession as job
creation lagged recovery.
The optimistic tone saw the rand trading stronger minutes after the
minister started delivering his maiden budget speech to the National
Assembly.
Nationalisation of South Africa's mines and other economic sectors is
not government policy, President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has come out in support of what it calls President Zuma’s “commitment to long-term energy planning and greening industrial policy” as outlined in the president’s State of the Nation address last Thursday.
Morné du Plessis, CEO of WWF, says, “South Africa cannot achieve the bold and exemplary commitments it made under the Copenhagen Accord without the transformation of its domestic energy economy. This requires, firstly, integrated energy planning, taking into account electricity supply, liquid fuels, direct fuel use by industry and the demand-side sectors of the energy economy.”
The Kagiso Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) - which measures manufacturing activity - entered 2010 with a bang.
Team South Africa - a partnership between the government and business -
will use the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos to reassure global
political and business leaders that it is ready to stage a successful
2010 Fifa World Cup, as well as position South Africa as "the next big
thing".
The partnership also aims to drive dialogue on the African agenda and will be encouraging WEF delegates to look South for fresh solutions to a better world, by experiencing the magnitude of the country's trade and investment offerings.
Represented in the partnership are the Presidency, IMC, Government Communication and Information Service, Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), Discovery, Old Mutual, Absa, Telkom, Nedbank, MTN, Sasol, Investec, Transnet and First Rand.
Investors who bought gold or commodities at the beginning of the decade tripled their money by 31 December 2009.
An American organisation and the National Business Initiative of South Africa, will partner in setting up the first economic council aimed at diversifying the South African economy.
South Africa's economy has moved out of recession, recording slight positive growth for the third quarter of 2009, Statistics SA said on Tuesday.
Year-on-year house price deflation is "almost a thing of the past," FNB said on Monday as it released its House Price Index.
Business & Economy
| SA needs a news revolutionAuthor: Lisa Roberts Monday, 08 March 2010 Read more... |
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