A new growth path for South Africa

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Periodical article

Title:	A new growth path for South Africa
Author:	Tregenna, Fiona
Year:	2011
Periodical:	Review of African Political Economy (ISSN 0305-6244)
Volume:	38
Issue:	130
Pages:	627-635
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	economic policy economic planning
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2011.633830
Abstract:	South Africa continues to face deep problems of unemployment, inequality and poverty. The South African government recently released a new economic policy framework, the New Growth Path (NGP). This policy is intended to facilitate 'a restructuring of the South African economy to improve its performance in terms of labour absorption as well as the composition and rate of growth'. This paper discusses the policy changes in the NGP, and evaluates the extent to which the NGP represents a leftwards shift in economic policy. While the NGP takes significant steps forward in the transformation of the South African economy, the necessity and the space exist for much stronger interventions. The NGP is not by any stretch a socialist economic policy, nor does it purport to be one. Amongst its weaknesses are the failure to fully change macroeconomic policies to ones that would really facilitate the shift to a different growth path as well as mitigating the power of capital, and the reliance on the private sector for the majority of employment creation. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]