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South Africa's Mboweni Must Revive Economy While Trimming Budget – BNN

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(Bloomberg) — South African Finance Minister Tito Mboweni will have to show commitment to curb spending and rein in debt in this week’s budget, while finding ways to revive an economy that probably contracted the most in nine decades last year.

Mboweni will present the government’s spending framework for the next three years on Wednesday, after the coronavirus pandemic ravaged Africa’s most-industrialized economy, increasing the strain on already stretched public finances and even forcing the ruling African National Congress to end its long-held resistance to borrowing from the International Monetary Fund.

While revenue collection for this fiscal year may overshoot the Treasury’s October estimate, the pandemic has raised pressure on state coffers. The government won’t reach its goal of achieving a primary budget surplus by 2025-26, according to sixty-five percent of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The targeted positive balance is part of the active scenario of managing public finances, which include debt that’s projected to peak at 95.3% of gross domestic product in the 2026 fiscal year.

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“In the absence of meaningful economic growth, South Africa’s fiscal strain will remain a reality for years to come,” said Elize Kruger, an independent economist.

The consolidated budget deficit is forecast reach 13.9% of GDP this fiscal year, according to the median estimate of 22 economists in a Bloomberg survey. That’s less than the Treasury’s October estimate, mainly due to better-than-expected tax collections rather than an improvement in the economic outlook. For 2021-22 the shortfall is now seen at 9.7% of GDP.

Read more: South Africa’s Upside Tax Surprise May Help Pay For Vaccines

What Bloomberg Economics Says:

“The biggest risk will remain the Treasury’s ability to implement the proposed wage savings of over 300 billion rand. The labor court vindicated the decision to freeze public-sector salaries last year. However, the decision has yet to be affirmed by the country’s highest court.

— Boingotlo Gasealahwe, Africa economist

For the full report, click here

While revenue is still expected to fall short of the 2020 budget forecasts, Mboweni no longer faces as much pressure to raise taxes in an economy the IMF sees expanding only 2.8% this year and 1.4% in 2022. The Treasury said last year that it plans to raise an additional 40 billion rand in revenue in the medium term, comprising 5 billion rand in 2021-22, 10 billion rand in 2022-23 and in 2023-24 and 15 billion rand in 2024-25.

Tax Increases

Of the economists surveyed, 70% expect Mboweni to announce tax increases. Those will probably come from excise duties on alcohol and tobacco products, fuel levies and by not adjusting tax brackets for inflation, rather than new measures such as a wealth or solidarity tax because that could further throttle the economy.

The “dire outlook necessitates a carefully calculated approach to governmental revenue generation,” Charles de Wet, a tax executive ENSAfrica, said in a note. “The minister is expected to prioritize economic growth and commercial stimulation during his budget speech by exercising restraint regarding taxation increases.”

The Treasury could reduce its weekly bond issuance by around 2 billion rand to show that it is serious about reducing the deficit and slowing debt accumulation, Nazmeera Moola and Adam Furlan of asset manager Ninety One Ltd. said in a note.

“Given the current large government cash balances, a continuation of the high levels of issuance would raise serious doubts about government’s commitment to further consolidation,” they said.

Read more: South Africa Treasury Likely To Maintain 2020-21 Bond-Sale Level

Officials including Mboweni have repeatedly warned that the country faces a sovereign debt crisis unless is takes urgent action. However, plans to reduce expenditure by about 300 billion rand over the next three fiscal years, mainly by paring a salary bill that’s surged by 51% since 2008, have drawn criticism from politically influential labor groups, civil society organizations and some opposition lawmakers.

Of 21 economists in a Bloomberg survey, 16 said the projected spending cuts will have to be revised down. Still, the Treasury may not change its spending outlook yet because there is no resolution on the wage-bill issue, said Peter Attard Montalto, head of capital markets research at Intellidex.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Economy

Yellen Sounds Alarm on China ‘Global Domination’ Industrial Push – Bloomberg

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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen slammed China’s use of subsidies to give its manufacturers in key new industries a competitive advantage, at the cost of distorting the global economy, and said she plans to press China on the issue in an upcoming visit.

“There is no country in the world that subsidizes its preferred, or priority, industries as heavily as China does,” Yellen said in an interview with MSNBC Wednesday — highlighting “massive” aid to electric-car, battery and solar producers. “China’s desire is to really have global domination of these industries.”

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Opinion: The future economy will suffer if Canada axes the carbon tax – The Globe and Mail

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Open this photo in gallery:

Poilievre holds a press conference regarding his “Axe the Tax” message from the roof a parking garage in St. John’s on Oct.27, 2023.Paul Daly/The Canadian Press

Kevin Yin is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail and an economics doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley.

The carbon tax is the single most effective climate policy that Canada has. But the tax is also an important industrial strategy, one that bets correctly on the growing need for greener energy globally and the fact that upstart Canadian companies must rise to meet these needs.

That is why it is such a shame our leaders are sacrificing it for political gains.

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The fact that carbon taxes address a key market failure in the energy industry – polluters are not incentivized to consider the broader societal costs of their pollution – is so well understood by economists that an undergraduate could explain its merits. Experts agree on the effectiveness of the policy for reducing emissions almost as much as they agree on climate change itself.

It is not just that pollution is bad for us. That a patchwork of policies supporting clean industries is proliferating across the United States, China and the European Union means that Canada needs its own hospitable ecosystem for clean-energy companies to set up shop and eventually compete abroad. The earlier we nurture such industries, the more benefits our energy and adjacent sectors can reap down the line.

But with high fixed costs of entry and non-negligible technological hurdles, domestic clean energy is still at a significant disadvantage relative to fossil fuels.

A nuclear energy company considering a reactor project in Canada, for example, must contend with the fact that the upfront investments are enormous, and they may not pay off for years, while incumbent oil and gas firms benefit from low fixed costs, faster economies of scale and established technology.

The carbon tax cannot address these problems on its own, but it does help level the playing field by encouraging demand and capital to flow toward where we need it most. Comparable policies like green subsidies are also useful, but second-best; they weaken the government’s balance sheet and in certain cases can even make emissions worse.

Unfortunately, these arguments hold little sway for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, who called for a vote of no-confidence on the dubious basis that the carbon tax is driving the cost-of-living crisis. Nor is it of much consequence to provincial leaders, who have fought the federal government hard on implementing the tax.

Not only is this attack a misleading characterization of the tax’s impact, it is also a deeply political gambit. Most expected the vote to fail. Yet by centering the next election on the carbon tax debate, Mr. Poilievre is hedging against the possibility of a new Liberal candidate, one who lacks the Trudeau baggage but still holds the line on the tax.

With the reality of inflation, a housing crisis and a general atmosphere of Trudeau-exhaustion, Mr. Poilievre has plenty of ammunition for an election campaign that does not leave our climate and our clean industries at risk. The temptation to do what is popular is ever-present in politics. Leadership is knowing when not to.

Nor are the Liberals innocent on this front. The Trudeau government deserves credit for pushing the tax through in the first place, and for structuring it as revenue-neutral. But the government’s attempt to woo Atlantic voters with the heating oil exemption has eroded its credibility and opened a vulnerable flank for Conservative attacks.

Thus, Canadian businesses are faced with the possibility of a Conservative government which has promised to eliminate the tax altogether. This kind of uncertainty is a treacherous environment for nascent companies and existing companies on the precipice of investing billions of dollars in clean tech and processes, under the expectation that demand for their fossil fuel counterparts are being kept at bay.

The tax alone is not enough; the government and opposition need to show the private sector that it can be consistent about this new policy regime long enough for these green investments to pay off. Otherwise, innovation in these much-needed technologies will remain stagnant in Canada, and markets for clean energy will be dominated by our more forward-thinking competitors.

A carbon tax is not a panacea for our climate woes, but it is central to any attempt to protect a rapidly warming planet and to develop the right businesses for that future. We can only hope that the next generation of Canadian leaders will have a little more vision.

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Business leaders say housing biggest risk to economy: KPMG survey – BNN Bloomberg

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Business leaders see the housing crisis as the biggest risk to the economy, a new survey from KPMG Canada shows.

It found 94 per cent of respondents agreed that high housing costs and a lack of supply are the top risk, and that housing should be a main focus in the upcoming federal budget. The survey questioned 534 businesses.

Housing issues are forcing businesses to boost pay to better attract talent and budget for higher labour costs, agreed 87 per cent of respondents. 

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“What we’re seeing in the survey is that the businesses are needing to pay more to enable their workers to absorb these higher costs of living,” said Caroline Charest, an economist and Montreal-based partner at KPMG.

The need to pay more not only directly affects business finances, but is also making it harder to tamp down the inflation that is keeping interest rates high, said Charest.

High housing costs and interest rates are straining households that are already struggling under high debt, she said.

“It leaves household balance sheets more vulnerable, in particular, in a period of economic slowdown. So it creates areas of vulnerability in the economy.”

Higher housing costs are themselves a big contributor to inflation, also making it harder to get the measure down to allow for lower rates ahead, she said. 

Businesses have been raising the alarm for some time. 

A report out last year from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce also emphasized how much the housing crisis is affecting how well businesses can attract talent. 

Almost 90 per cent of businesses want to see more public-private collaboration to help solve the crisis, the KPMG survey found.

“How can we work bringing all stakeholders, that being governments, not-for-profit organizations and the community and the private sector together, to find solutions to develop new models to deliver housing,” said Charest.

“That came out pretty strong from our survey of businesses.”

The federal government has been working to roll out more funding supports for other levels of government, and introduced measures like a GST rebate for rental housing construction, but it only has limited direct control on the file. 

Part of the federal funding has been to link funding to measures provinces and municipalities adopt that could help boost supply. 

The vast majority of respondents to the KPMG survey supported tax measures to make housing payments more affordable, such as making mortgage interest tax deductible, but also want to maintain the capital gains tax exemption for a primary residence.

The survey of companies was conducted in February using Sago’s Methodify online research platform. Respondents were business owners or executive-level decision makers.

About a third of the leaders are at companies with revenue over $500 million, about half have revenue between $100 million and $500 million, with the rest below. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 27, 2024.

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