South Africa would improve and grow its sluggish economy if it implemented 30 percent of its policies, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said on Thursday.
Delivering opening remarks during a conference on South Africa’s economy in Cape Town on Thursday, the minister decried the lack of implementation of agreed policies as one of the main challenges faced by the country.
“If we at least implement 30 percent of the things we said we would implement then we would be making great progress,” Mboweni said.
The conference, the third in a series of meetings involving government officials, public and private sector economists, and academics, deliberated on policy proposals on how to improve and grow the South African economy.
It is being held in preparation for Mboweni’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement to be tabled in Parliament later this month.
Mboweni’s comments came a few days after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had lowered South Africa’s economic growth forecast for 2019 by 0.5 percentage points, from 1.2 percent forecast in April to 0.7 percent.
In the October World Economic Outlook released on Tuesday, the IMF said growth in South Africa was expected to be weaker than projected in April, despite a moderate rebound in the second quarter.
The Bretton Woods institution said the slow growth forecast followed a very weak first quarter in which the South African economy slowed 3.2 percent, reflecting a larger-than-anticipated impact of labour strikes and energy supply issues in mining, together with weak agricultural production.
NM/jn/APA