SOUTH AFRICA – EMERGING POWER
SOUTH AFRICA – EMERGING POWER

Summary/Abstract: South Africa is the most developed country in Africa, which is why it could build a strong foreign policy in time, so that after the fall of the apartheid regime, South Africa focused mainly on relations with the African continent. The elements that determine the strength of a nation show us that South Africa is by far in the top of the most areas that contribute to maximizing national power: geography (it has access to two oceans and is the 9th country in Africa in terms of occupied area), natural resources (South Africa produces much of the products it needs and holds the largest reserves of manganese, chromium, gold, vanadium, aluminum silicate, platinum in the whole world), industrial capacity (South Africa is the most industrialized country in Africa), national morale (South Africa is one of the most patriotic countries in the world), the quality of diplomacy (103 embassies and 14 consulates), quality of governance (in 2005, 63% of South Africans believed that their current government has a good performance). Another important aspect to be noted is that South Africa has the strongest economy on the African continent, with an estimated Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008 of 495.1 billion dollars.

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