‘Nigeria could outshine SA in ten years’

South Africa’s economic growth outlook for the next two years is extremely positive, but there are signs of a considerable slowdown in the future. Azar Jammine, chief economist at Econometrix, said last week the rate of growth was already slowing down, with South Africa forecast to grow only 3.5% in 2011 compared to the 5.5% expected for sub-Saharan Africa. Speaking at a seminar organised by international credit insurer Coface, Jammine said South Africa was not paying attention to the warning signs and would find itself overtaken by other African countries. “Expectations are that Nigeria will overtake South Africa within the next ten years as the largest economy. South Africa is falling behind.” He said looking at international penetration countries such as Nigeria and Egypt and even Zimbabwe were already exceeding South Africa. “South Africa is not investing enough into its infrastructure. Only 18.6% of GDP is currently being invested into infrastructure. This is not enough to sustain economic growth.” Jammine said with growth of 3.8% forecast for 2012, all indications were that once the country reached a 4% growth rate it would slow down as there would be no momentum to push it further. And while the country had been well placed following the global economic meltdown and had managed to survive the local recession, he said one had to remember that South Africa was for all intents and purposes an “unproductive country relying heavily on imports”. “Mineral commodity prices have been well-placed, allowing for these exports to pay for the imports we need.”