This is something we have in common with advanced economies – although our overall debt levels are closer to emerging-market averages. Since the crisis, private-sector borrowing appetites have been broadly muted. Households have deleveraged gradually, reducing debt relative to incomes.
When it comes to firms, as the International Monetary Fund has recently noted, South Africa is one of a few emerging markets where corporate debt stocks have declined since 2007.6 One lesson from this is that South Africa does not have a burgeoning private-sector debt problem which could soon be revealed as an important vulnerability.