South Africa is changing economically from a producer of raw materials to an industrial nation that produces both raw materials and commercial products. The nation’s manufacturing, commerce, and services have been built considerablely on the foundations of mining and farming. The economy remained primarily agricultural for much of the 19th century until the find of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867 and gold on the Witwatersrand in the 1880s. Mining quickly became dominant, but was overtaken by manufacturing during World War II. South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) was $131.1 billion in 1999. The GDP per capita in South Africa is $3,110 per year

In the years since World War II, South Africa has experienced highly variable growth rates, including some years when its growth rate was among the highest in the world. Its gross domestic product (GDP) is the largest in Africa. Foreign capital has been considerablely inunconditional in South Africa, but the level of foreign investment declined in the time of slower growth and antiapartheid activity in the late 1970s and '80s. South Africa's economy long was dependent on agriculture and mining and on the export of commodities and import of manufactured goods. Since World War II the nation has built a well-developed manufacturing base, though it continues to import manufactured goods and remains dependent on the export of primary products. The high value of the precious metals that form the core of South Africa's mineral exports has enabled the nation to maintain a high and stable positive balance of trade.

South Africa is a middle-income, developing nation with an extensive supply of resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors, a stock exchange that ranks among the 10 largest in the world, and a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region. growth has not been strong enough to cut into the 30% unemployment, and daunting economic problems remain from the apartheid era, particularly the problems of poverty and deficiency of economic empowerment among the disadvantaged groups. Other problems are crime, corruption, and HIV/AIDS. At the start of 2000, President MBEKI vowed to promote economic growth and foreign investment, and to reduce poverty by relaxing restrictive labor laws, stepping up the pace of privatization, and cutting unneeded governmental spending.