Trends

A recent global Pew Research Center survey has found that consumers in emerging and developing nations, including South Africa, have the most positive economic outlook, while those in more advanced economies are more discontent with the present and negative about the future.

Readers of the international travel magazine Travel + Leisure have voted Cape Town as one of the Top 10 cities in the world. The Mother City took the ninth spot, while Kyoto in Japan took the top position for the second year in a row.

The number of internet users in South Africa is expected to increase because of more smart devices in the market. The most usage will come from people watching videos on their smartphones, and an estimated 43 billion minutes will be watched online by 2019.

Simple energy-saving measures implemented by the National Cleaner Production Centre at King Shaka International Airport have cut electricity usage at the Durban airport over the past three years by 1.9 GWh. That's enough energy to power 225 South African middle-income homes for a whole year.

South Africa's matric class of 2014 achieved a pass rate of 75.8% - a drop of 2.4 percentage points from the year before, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced on Monday, saying the decrease was not unexpected as the bar has been raised to enhance the quality and standard of Grade 12 graduates.

South Africa's economy is more connected to the global economy than its peers in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, according to the latest Visa Africa Integration Index, which aims to foster economic openness and facilitate growth from greater cross-border interaction between the 11 countries included in the study.

Poverty levels dropped in South Africa between 2006 and 2011, reaching a low of 20.2% for extreme poverty and of 45.5% for moderate poverty, according to the Poverty Trends in South Africa report released by Statistics SA on Thursday.

The R49-billion agro-processing sector has the potential to make a big dent in both South Africa's trade deficit and its unemployment figures, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said during a meeting with CEOs of the country's food processing industry on the weekend.