Since the attainment of independence in 1994 the new government in South Africa has adopted two outward looking development-oriented economic reform programmes, that is, the Reconstruction and Development Programme, (RDP) in 1994 and the Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategies in 1996. RDP clearly outlined the broad framework of the…

The South African government is evaluating the economy’s performance over its first decade in power. This period can be characterised by a ‘double’ liberalisation: democratisation of the political process going hand in hand with liberalisation of the economy. This paper provides a broad overview of the macroeconomic aspects of this…

The current phase of globalisation, from the mid-1980s to the present, has been characterised by farreaching changes in the global trading system. There have been differential economic gains from participation in the global economy, particularly a) between developed and developing countries and b) amongst developing countries. Much has depended on…

As liberalization and globalization gather pace, concern with industrial competitiveness is growing, not just in developing countries but also in mature industrial ones. But it is the former that face the most intense competitive pressures: many find that their enterprises are unable to cope with rigours of open markets in…

Today in South Africa we are witnessing changes that are remaking the country. These changes are in the social, economic and political spheres. Under its democratic government, South Africa committed itself to the principles of free-market economy nearly a decade ago. Yet, these commitments have not borne their expected fruits.…

Competition policy is part of the new international orthodoxy in economic policy and, at the same time, was viewed in South Africa as a crucial element of economic transformation. This article reviews the role of competition policy in economic development and the experiences of developing countries such as Brazil and…

This strategy document endeavours to analyse the South African automotive assembly and components industry's major market and production trends and dynamics as a mechanism for identifying current industry constraints and opportunities/challenges. It is comprised of six sections. Section 1 provides an overview of the sector's major trends as gleaned from…

Business process outsourcing and offshoring (BPO&O) is a major global trend, with a significant positive impact in developing countries that have the required skills, cost advantage and infrastructure. Over the next 4-5 years, a window of opportunity exists for South Africa to realize significant value by developing this sector. South…

Since the mid-1990s, South Africa has made considerable progress in opening ups its trade regime. In 1994 South Africa committed itself to reducing and simplifying its tariff levels and structure in accordance with it offer under the GATT Uruguay Round. As a consequence tariffs have fallen, although the number of…

One of the key issues that has been raised in terms of the analysis of small enterprise (SMME) support programmes in South Africa is that often support initiatives have been in the form of 'generic' packages that overlook the specificities of particular sectors. Although it has been recognized that the…

The food processing sector is widely regarded as having the potential to generate economic growth, entrepreneurial opportunities and employment (FAO, 1997; CIAT, 2002; Lambert, 2001; McCormick and Atieno, 2002). In developing countries the interest in agro-processing is associated with its potential for generating demand amongst smallholder farmers, upgrading primary production…

As international tariffs are being reduced increased attention is being given to the role of non-tariff measures in impeding trade flows. The working definition of NTMs used in this report is 'government measures other than tariffs that restrict trade flows'. This covers a range of measures from health and safety…

The barrier model of productivity growth suggests that individual country productivity is related to the world technology frontier disturbed by national barriers. We offer a country study of the barrier model, exploiting the dramatic changes in the linkages to the world economy in South Africa (SA).The productivity growth in the…

This paper integrates two mechanisms of economic growth barriers to international spill-overs and skill-biased effects on the income distribution. South Africa (SA) is an interesting case study because of dramatic changes in international barriers over time and policy focus to productivity and distribution. Barriers affect the balance between innovation and…

From a policy perspective, employment depends on both economic growth and the labour absorption capacity of the economy. Policy must target both of these. Higher growth rates can be achieved through productivity improvements (technology, industry restructuring, improved know-how, etc.) and/or growth in domestic or foreign market demand. Higher growth rates…

High and growing rates of unemployment have been a source of great frustration to policy-makers. Although exports have been buoyant and the 1990s has been the first decade of sustained growth, unemployment has been rising by 2 percentage points each year. If the expanded definition is used, the rate of…

Since 1994, some restructuring of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has taken place in South Africa (SA), which has included elements of corporatisation and commercialisation, as well as partial privatisation. The Government has committed itself to more reform. This is an ongoing process, and to inform this process an investigation into its…

Minimum wages have been in place for South Africa's one million domestic service workers since November of 2002. Using data from seven waves of the Labour Force Survey, this paper ocuments that the real wages, average monthly earnings, and total earnings of all employed domestic workers have risen since the…

The past two decades have witnessed an unprecedented globalisation of trade in goods and services. This process has been driven, inter alia, by technology, ideology and the availability of relatively cheap energy. By extrapolating this trend, one may expect further integration of world markets and increasingly unhindered international trade. However,…

This paper uses a novel dynamic factor model a la Forni et al. (2003) to investigate the impact of increasing trade on the co-movement of the business cycle between South Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. The results show a moderate but increasing synchronization between South Africa and SADC…