Gavin Bramley

Introduction to South African Economics

Who should attend?

This program was specifically designed to meet  INSETA requirements for the unit standard SAQA US ID 12761, NQF level 4.

The program is designed to assist the learner with a basic understanding of economics in South Africa.

The understanding of various economic factors can give the average South African a distinct advantage when is comes to financial matters. Investment trends are influenced by economic trends, as are interest rates, inflation, taxes and other variables.

Anyone who is in business or who is investing in property, the stock market, or in an insurance or unit trust portfolio will benefit by attending this program.

What this seminar promises:

After attending this seminar the learner will be able to understand the basics of macroeconomics and will be able to explain how these principles relate to the business environment in South Africa. The learner will be able to understand why certain macro-economic objective sare set and what the impact of achieving these objectives would have on the economy and indeed the individuals and businesses in that economy.

Seminar content

We will cover both Macro-ecoomic and Micro-economic concepts.

We discuss the concepts of scarcity, choice, efficiency, marginal analysis and opportunity cost.

How Microeconomics differs from macroeconomics.

We look at the many errors that can occur and that are often the source of disagreement amongst economists.

We will consider the concepts of supply and demand and how these relate to individuals and firms in an economy.

We consider the impact of various economic systems such as the market economy, mixed economy and command economy and the role of these economies in producing goods and services using the available factors of production,.

We will study the effects of Gross Domestic Production, unemployment, inflation, consumer spending, government investment spending, exports, imports and savings on the economy.

The importance of the major macroeconomic objectives is explained, particularly from the point of a developing South Africa.

The role of money in the economy is described and how the supply of money may be controlled or influenced by monetary and fiscal policies and how these may be affected by the annual government budget.