South Africa

Those of you looking for some good 'ol SA good news or positive reflections on our Country should go and pay a visit to South Africa : The Good News. A taste :

• Home ownership in SA has increased from 64% (5,12m households) in 1994 to 78% (7,9m households) in 2004, according to a South African Advertising Research Foundation development index
• Interest rates are at a 25-year low
• South Africa accounts for almost 45% of the GDP of the entire African continent, with an economy three times the size of the second biggest (Egypt)
• South Africa is one of only 12 countries with potable tap water
• Almost a quarter of South Africa’s non-interest budget is spent on education
• The University of South Africa UNISA is a pioneer of tertiary distance education and is the largest correspondence university in the world with 250,000 students
• In 1991, South Africa became the first country in the world to protect the Great White shark
• Afrikaans is the youngest official language in the world
• In 2005, Time Magazine hailed President Thabo Mbeki as the Most Powerful Man in Africa
• According to the Economic Freedom of the World 2005 Annual Report, South Africa ranks 38th out of 127 countries in terms of ecomomic freedom, tied with France and ahead of Israel, India, Italy, China, Brazil and Russia.
• South Africa is ranked 28th in the world for ease of doing business according to a survey conducted by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation
• The rand, the world's most actively traded emerging market currency, has joined an elite club of 15 currencies - the Continuous Linked Settlement (CLS) - where forex transactions are settled immediately, lowering the risks of transacting across time zones
• The Singita Private Game Reserve in the Kruger National Park was voted the best hotel in the world by the readers of travel publication, Conde Nast Traveller
• The South African Rand was the best performing currency against the US Dollar between 2002 and 2005, according to the Bloomberg Currency Scorecard
• South Africa has 37 000 high net-wealth individuals (holding at least US$1million in financial assets) in 2004, according to the World Wealth Report
• South Africa's per capita GDP, corrected for purchasing power parity, positions the country as one of the 50 wealthiest in the world
• Worldaudit.org ranks South Africa as the 32nd most democratic country out of 150 nations
• Stellenbosch University was the first university in the world to design and launch a microsatellite
• South Africa is the 32nd best place in the world to do e-business (tied with Poland), according to the Economist Intelligence Report.
• South Africa is the best-ranked country in terms of price stability, our fiscal policy is ranked 11th, our international trade competitiveness 21st, and we are the 28th most-attractive destination for foreign direct investment, according to the World Competiveness Yearbook 2005
• South African business owners of mid-size companies are the second most optimistic worldwide about their economic prospects of the year ahead, according to the annual Grant Thorton International Business Owners Survey for 2005.
• South Africa houses one of the three largest telescopes in the world at Sutherland in the Karoo
• South Africa is the first, and to date only, country to build nuclear weapons and then voluntarily dismantle its entire nuclear weapons programme
• South African media ranks 26th out of 167 countries in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index, ahead of the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan
• The value of South African real estate improved by 30% over the past 5 years
• Since 1994, 500 houses have been built each day for the poor
• Tax revenue in SA has increased by 220% over the past 10 years
• In 2005, 10 million South Africans benefited from access to social grants
• The number of tourists visiting South Africa has grown by 116% since 1994
• Over the past 5 years, Consumer Confidence in SA has improved by 43%.
• In the global measure of women in Parliament, South Africa ranks 8th in the world.
• Of the 10 LSM levels ( LSM1=poorest; LSM10 wealthiest ), the average SA family located in LSM6
• The current police to population ratio is 1:304.