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Food security, manufacturing expected to feature prominently in the MTBPS

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Economist Miyelani Mkhabela says food security, manufacturing and agro processing are expected to feature prominently as finance minister Enoch Godongwana, delivers his maiden Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) on Thursday afternoon.

The budget comes at a critical time when the country battles to keep the lights on, and rolling blackouts continue plunging the business sector into crisis.

Mkhabela says not everything that needs to be done needs a policy and the minister should focus on small wins.

“On economic development if the country can focus on small wins, which are low hanging fruit, it can be agriculture, they can focus on food security, which is agriculture and agro processing. They can as well look at allocation for manufacturing.”

“I think that is practical and it’s something that we can think about. Like if we need to present a lot of things, it cannot be really implemented in this short time,” explains Mkhabela.

Expectations from the mid-term budget: Miyelani Mkhabela

Mid-term budget policy statement during continued load shedding

Godongwana will deliver the mid-term budget policy statement amid an energy crisis that is crippling the economy.

Eskom’s executive team has been at pains to explain the multiple technical challenges facing the power utility.

There are expectations that the minister will move away from the austerity measures adopted by his predecessor Tito Mboweni and lean towards a more pro-poor policy stance.

Chief Economist at Investec Annabel Bishop says she expects the National Treasury to upwardly revise its growth forecast for 2021 from 3.3%t to 5%.

“I expect the National Treasury in the Midterm budget policy statement will revise their forecast for GDP close to 5%. This has been the current that we have seen from the SA Reserve Bank, from the IMF.”

“In fact one of the reasons for the upward revision is of course the fact that GDP was larger prior to Stats SA revising the figure. But of course we have also seen stronger growth than they anticipated this year because we have also seen the impact of global recovery and the commodity performance,” adds Bishop.

In the video below, Inkunzi Wealth Group Chief Executive Officer, Own Nkomo previews the MTBS:

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