World Cup will boot SA out of recession

Next year’s Soccer World Cup will help South Africa boot its way out of the global recession, according to the Organisation for Economic Development’s latest Economic Outlook. It predicts that real GDP growth will be negative overall for 2009, “but should turn positive in the fourth quarter and accelerate in the first half of 2010, boosted by the soccer World Cup”. The OECD forecasts GDP growth of 2.7% next year, recovering to 4.5% in 2011 – much higher than many of the country’s trading partners. Inflation should return to the target range in 2010 aided by a substantial output gap and the feed through of past rand appreciation.