Abstract
South Africa is classified as a middle-income state with ample supply of resources, a well-developed communication, financial, energy, legal and transport sector, and a stock exchange ranked among the top twenty-five in the world. The risk factors that arise in South Africa’s external environment, such as contracted economic growth in the Eurozone and the consequences of quantitative easing in the USA (the potential outflow of capital from developing markets), are indicators of instability to the economy, but over which the country has minimal jurisdiction. Internal risks have been
on the rise in the form of an inflationary current account deficit, declining mining and manufacturing outputs, coupled with escalating corruption in the public and private sectors. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive political risk assessment of South Africa based on 12 identified risk indicators. Research for this paper includes various articles, risk reports and wide ranging factual research. South Africa is measured as a medium to moderate risk state.