Focus
AFRICA: SOUTH AFRICA
SouthAfrica:BigGameHunting
G3 opens itsAfrican Continental Gaming Report with an examination of the South Africanmarket fromcasinos to LPMs
Diverse is a word often used to describe South Africa. Community leaders range from rabbis to rugby players, housing ranges from mud huts to mansions with swimming pools whilst traditional healers work around the corner from stockbrokers.
But it has not always been like that. Dutch traders landed at the southern tip of modern day South Africa in 1652 and established a stop over point on the spice route between the Netherlands and the Far East, thus founding the city of Cape Town.
When the British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806 many of the Dutch settlers (Boers) founded their own republics further north whilst the discovery of diamonds and gold spurred wealth and immigration.
The South African Indian culture began in 1860 when the first immigrants arrived as indentured labourers to work on sugarcane farms. Today there are about
Gamblingwas
restricted in South Africa fromas early
as 1673 and although the 1965Gambling
Act banned all forms of gambling (except
horse racing) by the late 1970s ‘casinos’ had begun to open.
1.2 million people of Indian descent in South Africa.
After the Boer War in 1902 the British and Afrikaners ruled together. In 1948 the National Party was voted into power and a policy of apartheid began and the country was ruled by a white minority government
The first multi racial elections in 1994 brought an end to apartheid and ushered in a majority rule under an African National Congress (ANC) led government.
Since that time South Africa has struggled to address apartheid era imbalances, particularly in social disruption, lawlessness and lost education. This came to a head with ANC in house fighting which led to the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki. The ANC won elections in 2009 and Jacob Zuma is currently president.
Today, South Africa is very much Africa’s superpower and has the biggest economy despite the sharp slowdown in mining and manufacturing sectors following the recession.
It is known for its diversity in cultures G3i I ISSUE 2 I PAGE 8
and languages. Afrikaans, which originated from Dutch, is spoken by the vast majority of white and coloured South Africans and South African English. Although English has a large role in public and commercial life, it is only the fifth most spoken home language.
Around 79 per cent of the South African population is of black African ancestry whilst the country also has the largest European, Asian and racially mixed communities in Africa.
The largest city is Johannesburg with 3.8 million population followed by Cape Town with 3.6 million and Durban with 3.1 million.
It is a middle-income, emerging market with well developed financial, legal, communications, energy and transport sectors and an abundance of natural resources. Its stock exchange is the 18th largest in the world and it has a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to urban centres throughout the region.
Apart from the energy crisis in 2007 growth was robust between 2004 and 2008 as the country reaped the benefits of a macroeconomic stability and a global commodities boom. This, however, began to slow in the second half of 2008 due to the global financial crisis and GDP fell by
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