[South Africa] IMF says South Africa needs more growth to fight poverty

from Yahoo News

MIDRAND, South Africa (AFP) - Record growth rates have not been enough for South Africa to make significant progress in battling poverty and unemployment, a top International Monetary Fund official has said.

John Lipsky, the bank's first deputy managing director, said the continent's economic powerhouse "has been enjoying its longest macroeconomic expansion on record" and forecast 4.2 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) this year.

But he warned it was not enough to fight South Africa's high unemployment which affects at least one out of three people, according to experts, and redress economic imbalances from the apartheid era which ended in 1994.

"While recent growth has been impressive by South Africa's historical standards, it has not been enough to make significant inroads into unemployment, poverty and underdevelopment," Lipsky told reporters on the last day of his maiden visit to the country.

"The acute income and wealth disparities inherited from the apartheid era are still painfully evident, poverty is still widespread and ... HIV/AIDS is extracting a heavy social and economic toll.