{"id":6830,"date":"2012-01-07T20:24:23","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T18:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/01\/s-africa-faces-big-downside-risk-from-europe-imf\/"},"modified":"2012-01-07T20:24:23","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T18:24:23","slug":"s-africa-faces-big-downside-risk-from-europe-imf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africa-faces-big-downside-risk-from-europe-imf\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa faces big downside risk from Europe -IMF"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Lagarde asks S.Africa to check wage growth<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Says should maintain supportive policy<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa<\/span> Jan 7 (Reuters) &#8211; The euro<br \/>\nzone crisis could hurt South Africa&#8217;s economy and the country<br \/>\nshould maintain a supportive monetary policy to ensure growth in<br \/>\nthe medium term, the head of the International Monetary Fund<br \/>\nsaid on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Christine Lagarde, in South Africa as part of her first tour<br \/>\nof the continent since taking the IMF post, said the African<br \/>\neconomic powerhouse would do well to also moderate wage growth.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Although well integrated into the global economy, South<br \/>\nAfrica mitigated the worst impact of 2008&#8217;s recession through a<br \/>\nsound macroeconomic regime, a strong financial sector and a<br \/>\nflexible exchange rate, she said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ongoing difficulties in the euro area, one of South<br \/>\nAfrica&#8217;s main export markets, present significant downside risks<br \/>\nto the economic outlook,&#8221; Lagarde said in a statement after<br \/>\nmeetings with President Jacob Zuma and senior officials.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In this context, we agreed that the challenge now is to<br \/>\nensure that monetary policy remains supportive and<br \/>\ncompetitiveness improves.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The country has lost about a million jobs in the past two<br \/>\nyears, positions analysts say will be difficult to reopen<br \/>\nbecause unions have priced labour out of the market.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The average factory worker in South Africa earns about six<br \/>\ntimes as much as a factory worker in China and is less<br \/>\nefficient.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africa, along other emerging markets, is bearing the<br \/>\nbrunt of global risk aversion triggered by the euro zone crisis.<br \/>\nIts rand currency fell nearly 23 percent against the<br \/>\ndollar in 2011.\t<\/p>\n<p> (Writing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Lagarde asks S.Africa to check wage growth * Says should maintain supportive policy BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa Jan 7 (Reuters) &#8211; The euro zone crisis could hurt South Africa&#8217;s economy and the country should maintain a supportive monetary policy to ensure growth in the medium term, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-6830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}