Republic of South Africa

Wealth and National Well-Being

Country Comparisons: chart

Michael Sokolove: "South Africa is a place that apartheid is over, but there's a terrible chasm between rich and poor, income inequality. And people with money, people with houses tend to live behind walls, behind barbed wire, behind gates with guns." (News Hour, Feb 14, 2013)

World Factbook:

South Africa is a middle-income, emerging market with an abundant supply of natural resources; well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors; a stock exchange that is the 18th largest in the world; and modern infrastructure supporting a relatively efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region

Of pregnant women in 2005, 31% were found to be HIV infected, and the infection rate among adults was estimated at 20 percent.

Real growth rate:
2012: 2.6%
2011: 3.1%

The official unemployment rate
2012: 24.4%
2011: 24.9%
2010: 23.3%

South Africa produces corn, wheat, sugarcane, fruits, vegetables; beef, poultry, mutton, wool and dairy products. It is the world's largest producer of platinum, gold, chromium. It has industries such as automobile assembly, metalworking, machinery, textiles, iron and steel, chemicals, fertilizer and commercial ship repair. All this wealth production is accompanied by the second greatest division in wealth as measure by the World Factbook's Gini Index – second to Namibia.

Three percent of its GDP is produced by agriculture, and agriculture takes 9% of its labor force. In addition to well developed commercial agriculture, in some rural areas people are surviving on subsistence agriculture.

Public debt
2012: 43.3% of GDP

Import/export ratio
2010: 99.8%, slightly unfavorable

Income Distribution – gini index
Ranks 65th among 140 countries (higher rank number is more equal, lower rank number is less equal). Sweden leads with ranking of 140. Britain ranks 94th.

Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP
2006: 1.7%

People

Living in an urban area:
2010: 62% (2010)

Race-ethnicities
2001 census: black African 79%, white 9.6%, colored 8.9%, Indian/Asian 2.5%

Religions
2001 census: Zion Christian 11.1%, Pentecostal/Charismatic 8.2%, Catholic 7.1%, Methodist 6.8%, Dutch Reformed 6.7%, Anglican 3.8%, Muslim 1.5%, other Christian 36%, other 2.3%, unspecified 1.4%, none 15.1%

Net migration rate
2012: A net loss of 6.22 per 1.000 population, includes Zimbabweans and people from Botswana in South Africa in search of better economic opportunities.

Literacy
2003: males 87 percent, females 85.7 percent

Murders per capita
Ranked 12th by Wikipedia, just behind Colombia. (El Salvador is 1st)

Geography

Almost twice as large as Texas, 12 percent of which is arable land. Mostly semi-arid.

Government

Chief of state and head of government: Jacob Zuma (president) since 9 May 2009, African National Congress (self described as disciplined left). Head of government:

Multi-party democracy. Capital: Pretoria

SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/