Real Economy Year Book 2015

There are very few beacons of hope on South Africa’s economic horizon. Economic growth is weak, unemployment is rising, electricity supply is insufficient to meet demand and/or spur growth, with poor prospects for many of the commodities mined and exported. However, South Africa is performing relatively well in one key infrastructure area – the renewable-energy sector. Since 2012, government has successfully procured 5 243 MW of renewable-energy capacity across 92 individual projects. Given this success and the importance of infrastructure in helping to restimulate growth in South Africa, it might be well worth considering the feasibility of replicating this successful renewables public–private partnership template to other revenue-generating infrastructure areas. These include the automotive, construction, electricity, road and rail, steel, water, coal, gold, iron-ore and platinum sectors. These sectors do not only feature in this edition of Creamer Media’s Real Economy Year Book, but are also presented as individual reports under the banner Real Economy Insight.