ATI

COUNTRY PROFILE

South Africa

South Africa is an upper-middle-income country and the largest economy in Southern Africa. After accelerated growth in the early to mid-2000s, helped by upswings in commodity prices, progress stalled after the Global Financial Crisis in 2007 and the end of the commodity supercycle in 2015. South Africa is a high economic transformer. With a 2020 overall ATI score of 60.4, the country outperforms the African average, with relatively high scores on all DEPTH dimensions.
CAPITAL CITY

Cape Town

POPULATION (2022)

59.9 million

POPULATION GROWTH (2022)

0.8 %

GDP GROWTH (2022)

2 %

GDP PER CAPITA (2022)

US $6,777

South Africa’s Performance on the African Transformation Index

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The overall African Transformation Index score measures the five dimensions of DEPTH.

Overall score

60.4 /100

Score change
+3.1

since 2000

At a glance
  • South Africa is a high economic transformer with an overall ATI score of 60.4. This score is twice the African average of 30.3 and higher than any other country except Tunisia.
  • South Africa surpasses the African average in all DEPTH dimensions, and scores within the top six of each dimension among the 30 countries comprising the ATI, with a particularly high score on Productivity increases.
Score
/100
Change since 2000
Diversification
63.8
-11.7
Export competitiveness
24.5
+5.7
Productivity increases
84
+13.8
Technology upgrading
64
+7.8
Human well-being
65.8
+0.1

Diversification of production and exports measures countries’ capability to produce and export a widening array of goods and services.

Score

63.8 /100

Score change
-11.7

since 2000

At a glance
  • South Africa has a highly diversified economy, but its Diversification score declined significantly between 2000 and 2020.
  • Since 2000, Mauritius, Egypt, and Tunisia have overtaken South Africa on Diversification, due to a decline in the share of manufacturing in the country’s total value added, which decreased from 20.5 percent in 2000 to 13.3 percent in 2020.
  • Services have become increasingly dominant, rising from 66.4 percent in 2000 to 71 percent in 2020.
  • While South Africa has one of the most diverse export baskets of any African economy, the share of the top five exports (ores, slag, ash, precious metals, and stone products) has increased consistently in recent years, from 31.8 percent in 2015 to 39.6 percent in 2020.
 
 

Export competitiveness is measured as the ratio of a country’s share in the world’s exports of non-extractive goods and services to its share in world non-extractive GDP.

Score

24.5 /100

Score change
+5.7

since 2000

At a glance
  • South Africa scores higher on Export competitiveness than most of its peers, but its exports remain relatively uncompetitive compared to the global average.
  • Since 2000, South Africa has made some sustained progress in this dimension, due in large part to a series of targeted government export strategies and programs.
  • The country’s export structure has become relatively more resource-based in recent years.

Productivity increases measure the value added per unit of labor in agriculture, manufacturing, and services.

Score

84 /100

Score change
+13.8

since 2000

At a glance
  • South Africa is among the most productive economies on the continent.
  • South Africa’s strong improvement in Productivity increases between 2000 and 2010 was sustained by rapid increases in manufacturing and agricultural productivity.
  • Improvements in labor productivity have occurred despite challenges that affected total factor productivity, including skills shortages, high costs of doing business, and infrastructure deficits, particularly in transportation and energy.

Technology upgrading measures the medium-and high-technology content in total production activities and total commodity exports.

Score

64 /100

Score change
+7.8

since 2000

At a glance
  • South Africa is considerably more advanced technologically than most of its peers.
  • While growth in this area has recently slowed, South Africa’s production and exports have a high technology content compared to other African countries.
  • South Africa’s current score of 64 still represents a modest gain from its score of 60.9 in 2010, though Morocco, Nigeria, and Tunisia have surpassed it.

Human well-being measures economic and social outcomes and enablers in terms of incomes, income inequality, formal employment, and female participation in formal labor markets.

Score

65.8 /100

Score change
+0.1

since 2000

At a glance
  • South Africa has a high Human well-being score, but that score has remained virtually unchanged since 2000.
  • The country remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. The Gini coefficient increased from 58.3 to 64.1 in 2005 and has stalled at 63 for the last 15 years.
  • Per capita incomes have fell between 2015 and 2020.

Discover more from the ATI

ATI Scorecard

Explore the data behind the economic transformation progress of 30 African countries between 2000-2020.

Growth with DEPTH

Explore the ATI in DEPTH and see how African countries performed on each dimension between 2000-2020.

Methodology

Learn more about our methodology, sources, and how we calculate the index.

Country Profiles

To explore the results of the index in greater detail and provide context and analysis, the ATI report includes 11 case studies.

Downloads

Our Research & Analysis on South Africa
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