Headwinds and Tailwinds

South Africa’s economy posted negligible growth in the final quarter of last year. The only bit of good news is that 0.1% real quarterly growth means that a technical recession – two consecutive negative quarters – was avoided. This is not a hugely important distinction, but it might have dealt yet not another blow to sentiment. The bad news is that growth for 2023 as a whole was only 0.6%. The underlying growth in the domestic economy has therefore been weak, no matter how you look at it. Why?

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