IMF sees SA as a regional giant

SMALL IN terms of population numbers but the regional economic giant. That’s SA, which has just been acknowledged in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2007 economic outlook for sub-Saharan Africa as the industrial and commercial powerhouse of the subcontinent. Though SA only has 6% of the population, it accounted for over a third of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) on a purchasing power parity basis, the report released last week added. It pointed to this as being more than three times as much as Nigeria, the region’s second-largest economy. It is also a staggering 40 times as much as Mali, which the IMF rates as “the median economy” in the region. Another indication is that the SA GDP is ranked higher than the combined products of each of the main regional economic blocs – except that of the 14-member Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).