Themba Radebe 1 hour ago News 0 Views
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) says the latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures show that South Africa’s economy is in deep trouble.
The federation has further warned that the government’s projection that the economy will grow by 1.6% this year is a pipe dream.
The union was responding to the GDP figures released by Statistics South Africa yesterday, showing that the economy grew by 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Saftu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi says the fourth quarter figures are just as disappointing as there is usually lots of economic activity in December.
“We had hoped that there would be great levels of growth because workers receive their annual bonuses in December, and retail and manufacturing normally benefit from increased consumer spending. The so-called Black Friday shopping period triggers a massive retail sale, and there is also a large-scale internal travelling of people going to Durban, mainly Gqeberha and other destinations.”
Vavi has suggested the need for urgent economic structural reforms, where the economy can create more jobs by producing products domestically instead of exporting raw materials.
“We are about only extracting the minerals, we’re about harvesting our raw vegetables and fruits and exporting the best of them to Europe, only for all of those to come back as finished products into the South African economy. We are worried that the economy is being warehoused for foreign-manufactured tools where we create jobs elsewhere.”
Related video | Stats SA confirms slow growth trajectory with 0.4% Q4 GDP growth
www.sabcnews.com, https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/latest-gdp-figures-show-sas-economy-is-in-deep-trouble-vavi/
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