South Africa: Facts & Stats

ECONOMY

Industry:

The largest industrial sector is the metal products and engineering sector dominated by ISCOR (Iron and Steel Corporation of South Africa), now privatized. South Africa is the world's largest gold, platinum, manganese, chromium, vanadium, alumino-sillicates and titanium producer; and the second largest of vermiculite and zirconium; third for fluorspar; fourth for antimony; and fifth for zinc, coal, lead, and uranium. The steel industry feeds a substantial motor vehicle sector, which experienced a 14% increase in production from 2000 to 2001. Companies like Columbus Stainless Steel and Billiton's Hillside Aluminum Smelter produce processed industrial minerals, instead of just primary commodities. A dip in gold prices during the late 1990s threatened the gold mines, but only temporarily. The mining industry contributes more than 50% to exports, and some estimates go up to 70%.

South Africa is the only African state to produce pulp and paper. The clothing and textiles sector and the electronics sector were experiencing strong growth in 2002, as was the construction sector, which employed 260,000 people. The chemical sector centers on sizeable fertilizer production and the Modderfontein explosives factory. The sector is also home to the synthetic fuels production industry which, with three plants in operation that produce oil and petrochemicals from coal, serves 40% of the nation's motor fuels demands. There are four oil refineries in South Africa, with a total production capacity in 2002 of 469,000 barrels per day.

Agriculture:

South Africa has a dual agricultural economy, with both well-developed commercial farming and more subsistence-based production in the deep rural areas.

Agricultural activities range from intensive crop production and mixed farming in winter rainfall and high summer rainfall areas to cattle ranching in the sheep farming in the arid regions. Maize is most widely grown, followed by wheat, oats, sugar cane and sunflowers.

South Africa is among the world's top five exporters of avocados, grapefruit, tangerines, plums, pears, table grapes and ostrich products.

Farming contributes some 8% to the country's total exports. The largest export groups are wine, citrus, sugar, grapes, maize, fruit juice, wool, and deciduous fruit such as apples, pears, peaches and apricots.

Research & Development:

Several important scientific and technological developments have originated in South Africa. The first human-to-human heart transplant was performed by cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in December 1967. Max Theiler developed a vaccine against Yellow Fever, Allan McLeod Cormack pioneered x-ray Computed tomography, and Aaron Klug developed crystallographic electron microscopy techniques. These advancements were all recognized with Nobel Prizes. Sydney Brenner won most recently, in 2002, for his pioneering work in molecular biology.

One of the most well known innovations is the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). Due to be completed in 2005 after 5 years of construction, it will be the single largest telescope in the southern hemisphere with a hexagonal mirror array of 11 meters across. SALT is an example of the worldwide collaboration that South Africa is vigorously pursuing.

Most recently, South Africa presented a proposal to provide an excellent site for the revolutionary Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope. The SKA is the most important and most exciting project proposed for radio astronomy in the past 50 years.

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