Chairperson, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour for me to address you this morning, not least because the confluence of favourable developments referred to by President Thabo Mbeki in his State of the Nation address early last year has indeed contributed to another banner year for South Africa.
Today, I wish to highlight only a few of the most important domestic economic developments that have transpired during 2005 and some of the encouraging prospects for 2006. 2. Growth in real gross domestic product amounted to 4,5 per cent in 2004, and preliminary anecdotal evidence suggests that this performance may have been exceeded somewhat in 2005.