How Africa
According to the International Monetary Fund South African current account has improved somewhat. Looks like Pravin Gordhan’s work is paying off.
The IMF has said that South Africa’s finances are in a much better state than before, when we were part of the “fragile five” alongside Brazil, India, Indonesia and Turkey.
While we’re “not nearly as bad as we were,” IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld says we remain vulnerable to our large current account deficit, but added that our flexible exchange regime ‘has served us well’.
Yesterday Gordhan gave his mini-budget speech, where the minister committed Treasury to reducing our current budget deficit of 3.5% to 2.4% in 2017/18.
Whatever the minister’s doing – and despite the NPA and Zuma’s attacks on him – it looks like it’s working.
