South Africa Report on Science, Technology and Innovation

Abstract

Located in the southernmost tip of the African continent, with an area of 1213,100 km², South Africa is renowned as the “Country of Rainbow”. The country is surrounded by the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean in the east, south and west. At the end of 2015, South Africa had a population of 54.9569 million and gross domestic product (GDP) of 314.572 billion US dollars, the second largest economy in Africa (second only to Egypt, 330.779 billion US dollars). With per capita gross national income (GNI) of 6080 US dollars, South Africa is a developing country of medium to high income while keeping people’s living standards among the best in Africa. Since the establishment of the new South Africa in 1994, it economic development has gone through three stages: 1994–2002, a slight decline in GDP which maintained around 100–150 billion US dollars; 2003–2011, rapid economic growth where GDP increased by about three times, with an annual growth rate of 16.37%; 2012–2015, the economy began to decline, down by 6.7% per year.