The forecast for possible developments over the next five years provided in Table 1 is, like all economic forecasts, based on past trends, and on discretionary assumptions about possible future developments. For the purpose of this forecast, it was assumed that Government will continue to implement the GEAR strategy and will retain disciplined fiscal and monetary policies.
It was also assumed that South Africa will be able to attract a fairly substantial amount of foreign investment funds over the next five years -- an amount at least equal to the total net inflows of the past five years, with hopefully a greater part of it in direct instead of portfolio investment.