The World Bank has recently released their report into Reshaping Economic Geography. There has been some criticism of it saying that it is centred on the developed world and puts the rest of the world into that context. However Pravin Gordhan our Finance Minister is of the opinion that we are our own market here in Africa and we should focus on developing that rather than just the same old story.
- 900 million people in Africa
- Why should we export to overseas?
- Developed world still colonialist
The fact is we export many of our resources to the developed world who then process them and resell them to us at a massive mark-up. We should be engaging with those markets that are not as geographically separated from us. The World Bank comes from a developed nations perspective and they still see Africa and the developing world as dependent on the developed world, but this will not continue to be the case forever.
South Africa has weathered the recession admirably, so far, due to the effects of the National Credit Act. We are in a position to reverse the status of client state that has historically been ours. We are in a position to expand our influence into Africa and make the most out of the time while the West is floundering financially. The World Bank reckons that some of our developmental policies are out of line with their thinking, but let us remember that they want a return to business as usual which means the developing world servicing the developed world. We have a responsibility to set ourselves free of prior economic constraints.