The current Economic Situation in SA, India and Germany

It’s is said that South Africa still faces major challenges to improve its competitiveness and ensure it translates into improved national productivity.

For SA, globalisation has led to rapid growth in trade, driving economic growth. Trade has grown from 45% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 74% between 1983 and 2008, reflecting the growing trade liberalisation of SA. Particularly, the Uruguay Round of multilateral

Turkey is the 18th largest economy body in the world, the 6th largest economy entity in Europe, GDP with $786 billion, GNI per capita with $10, 970, which belong Upper middle income country (World Bank, 2013). Service industry contributed approximately 64.9% for GDP, the industrial sector just over a quarter, agriculture was about 8.2% (CIA, 2014). Moreover, Turkey has a sustainable and steady growth after structural reforms and macroeconomic stabilization since 2001, Turkish economy is becoming diversified and export-oriented due to the large inflow of FDI (ibid). GDP is expected to grow by about 5% over the next five years, single-digit inflation rate will continue to decline (Invest in Turkey, 2014: 24).

Today’s economic outlook for Turkey is deteriorating. GDP growth has been revised to 3.6% for 2008 (against 4.3% previously) and to 3.0% for 2009 (previously 4.0%). Turkey’s unemployment rate rose to 9.4%. The slowdown in growth in 2007 (GDP growth of 4.5%)

Today’s economic outlook for Turkey is deteriorating. GDP growth has been revised to 3.6% for 2008 (against 4.3% previously) and to 3.0% for 2009 (previously 4.0%). Turkey’s unemployment rate rose to 9.4%. The slowdown in growth in 2007 (GDP growth of 4.5%) and

South Africa is amongst the top 20 stock exchanges in the world and has the second largest stock exchange in Africa. With an abundant supply of natural resources as well as a developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors South Africa is considered a middle-income country with an emerging market (2017). South Africa’s GDP is broken up by sector by 2.2% in agriculture, 29.2% in industry and 68.7% in services. They have a budget deficit of -3.5% with their revenues being $76.62 billion and expenditures being $86.45 billion (2017). South Africa has structural constraints that are limiting economic growth because of skill shortages, declining global competitiveness and frequent strikes as well as unstable electricity keeps growth from exceeding 3% until the power grid reliability is fixed that limit the distribution of goods to major urban centers in the region (2017).

The South African economy is second largest economy in Africa following Nigeria (which recently overtook South Africa according to the Economist) (Mail & Guardian, 2014). From the early 2000s, Former President Thabo Mbeki promoted economic growth and foreign investment by relaxing labour laws, increasing the pace of privatisation, and reducing unnecessary governmental spending. His policies faced strong opposition from organised labour. From the mid 2000s, economic growth picked up significantly; both employment and capital formation increased which resulted in South Africa to be considered as an emerging market; formally joining BRICS in 2010 (World Bank, 2014). The policy exhibited over the past few years has resulted in macro stabilization successes and enhanced policy legitimacy. However, the growth and unemployment challenge facing South Africa is significant one. Investment rates are currently low, furthermore the legacy of apartheid is evident in the persistent distortions in all factor markets: for labour, as evident in the scale and persistence of unemployment and inadequate investment in human capital; for capital, in the low savings/investment rates (Lewis, 2012).

To access the Economy & Growth database look up world data bank economic and the data.worldbank.org website is the first hyperlink. The fourth database I provided is called The World 's Foremost Full-Text Source of References to Economic Literature. “This resource  provides links to full-text articles in all fields of economics, including capital markets, country studies,

Namibia is small flourishing country located in the south west of Africa. Its surrounding neighbors are Angola, Botswana, South Africa, and the South Atlantic Sea. The country is very young, and was recently liberated from foreign and South African rule, and was formerly known as South West Africa. Compared to all of its neighbors Namibia has an extremely low unemployment rate of 5.3%, and a GDP per capita of 7,500 USD. Even though the country appears to have a high per capita GDP compared to some of its other neighbors, the distribution of wealth in the country is one the “world’s most uneven distributions of wealth”. Namibia also has close economical ties with South Africa, because the South African rand and the Namibian

According to Haley et al (2006) emerging markets “are those in low and middle- income countries characterized by lower standards of living with access to fewer goods and services than do most people in high income countries”. Many countries, like South Africa are classed as an emerging economy because of their growing economy as well as the standard of living improving throughout the years. South Africa currently produces a substantial range of diverse products such as electronics, vehicles and parts as well as natural materials which are sold all around the world which has improved the productivity and increasing the economic GDP by 2.5%, making a positive impact on South Africa; figure 1.1 shows the annual GDP for South Africa in recent years.

1. 2. 2.1 2.2 2.3 3. 3.1 3.2 4. 5. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3 From GDP to Welfare................................................................................................................... 3 GDP

The year 2014 is an important year for South Africa. The first elections after the death of South African ex-president Nelson Mandela will take place and after twenty years of democracy, the world will be watching us again. The world holds much interest in the economy and politics of South Africa as was discussed in Appendix A and Appendix B and it is safe to assume that the world is a stakeholder in the politics and economy of South Africa.

The effects of sin taxable products on the South Africa’s economy and their impact on South Africa’s Socio Economic Issues

Economic policy in SA was formed with dependence on extraction industries such as gold and diamond extraction. In the 19th century these industries were isolated from world markets. Policies in these industries protected investors whom most were foreign. When government realised the risks of over-specialisation in the mining industry it adopted policies that encourage farming and local manufacturing. Monopoly concessions were issued around the 19th century. Ensuring manufacturers benefit from low input costs such as electricity and steal, through protective tariff barrier, and supplied by state owned

| Economic * Financial crisis and impacts on the capital markets : volatility, affected liquidity, higher risk perception * Decline of exchange rate for US dollar * Recession in western Europe * Downturn in industries such as automobiles, construction, energy... * Influence of energy prices