JOHANNESBURG, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The South African Reserve Bank has said that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth could dwindle by 1.1 percentage points, if rolling power outages experienced in March persist throughout the year.
The bank released its Monetary Policy Review on Wednesday night saying "Load shedding is a risk to 2019 growth and if it continues all year, growth is likely to be lower by 1.1 percentage points, which would be worst performance since 2009."
Indebted state owned power utility Eskom implemented stage 4 load shedding last month for over two weeks as it struggled to keep the lights on due to boiler tube leaks and reduced water levels in Eskom's hydro.
The Bank said that over 125,000 jobs could also be lost if the problem is not solved.
The Reserve Bank had earlier projected that the economic growth could grow at 1.5 percent for this year, but it has since revised this forecast to 1.3 percent. Economists estimate that the country loses 2 billion rands (about 142 million U.S. dollars) every day as a result of load shedding.
