These narrowly positive growth numbers are disappointing, not least because they fall well below the 5,4 per cent growth described in the National Development Plan as the rate necessary for meaningful progress against unemployment and poverty. I would like to talk to you today about this low growth problem – and about the role of monetary policy.
Boom and bust, recovery and relapse It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves how we arrived at the present circumstances. The current post-crisis era of low growth was preceded by a large boom. The South African economy expanded continuously from the end of 1998 to the middle of 2008, its output increasing by almost half.