According to the political section in this paper, 1994, and its democratic transition has also been a significant transitional year for South Africa’s economy. As stated in the Economist (2010) South Africa is the biggest economy in Africa; furthermore, the World Bank has ranked South Africa as an upper middle-income economy (which accounts for an income of $4,086 to $12,615 per annum) as like as Brazil and China. Additionally, taken several factors into account, the Heritage Foundation (2013) scores South Africa’s economic freedom as the 75th (out of 186) in the 2014 Index. To assess a country’s performance, one looks at its GDP development, or in particular the real GDP growth, as a main indicator for a countries performance. Figure X reveals South Africa had a substantial growth over the years except from 2009. Because of its global integrated economy, it has not been unaffected by the global crisis. Nevertheless, BRIC countries have been less affected, looking at the aggregated figures in Figure X.
Figure X: Economic Indicators
Source: OECD (2013)
In Figure X2 you can see the diverse economy of South Africa and the key sectors roughly contributing to the GDP.

Figure X2: Composition of South Africa’s Key Sectors contributing to GDP

Source: Own Illustration, Statistics South Africa (2012)

On the basis of the industrialization section in this paper, caused by South Africa’s de-industrialization, it failed to engage and develop the manufacturing industry as an accelerator for exporting. One of South Africa’s biggest economical challenges is the unemployment rate. The highest rate was at 31.20% in the first quarter of 2003, after it’s record low of 21.50% n 2008, since then, the rates varied between 24% and 26% (Tradingeconomics, 2014). Surprisingly, South Africa has a significant lower informal employment than other developing countries in Sub-Saharan