[lbo-talk] S. Africa's flimsy economy

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Mar 26 21:23:35 PST 2006


Patrick Bond wrote:


>----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" dhenwood at panix.com
>>Here's what the World Bank's World Development Indicators database
>>has to say. Average annual growth rate in per capita GDP for SA,
>>1994-2004, in constant rand: 1.2%. If you use 1990 as the base
>>year, the performance is much worse: 0.3%. Since 1990 and 1994 -
>>base year doesn't matter much here - investment has averaged under
>>17% of GDP; for China, it's been 39%; India, 23%; and the US, 18%.
>>So, SA is investing less than a rich mature economy when it should
>>be investing more like China & India.
>
>(Caveat needed on WB data - see Sanjeev Reddy's chapter in the
>current Socialist Register, where Doug also has a great
>contribution.)

I'm pretty sure the constant rand figures are just what the SA government gives them. The PPP measures are the WB's own, but they're pretty much the same as the constant rand.

Doug



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