DOCUMENTS

Gordhan promises policy continuity

But new finance minister says room needed to respond to world economic crisis

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa will work to ensure continuity of economic policy while leaving room to manoeuvre to respond to the global financial crisis, new Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Monday.

Shortly after being sworn in, he said that policies in place would help to steer the country through the downturn.

"So there will certainly be continuity but like everywhere else in the world, we have to be mindful of what is going on and also leave ourselves room for responsiveness to what is happening," he told Reuters in an interview.

South African President Jacob Zuma chose the tax authority chief to replace Trevor Manuel as finance minister to guide Africa's biggest economy through what may already be its first recession in 17 years.

Manuel was appointed to head a powerful new planning body, keeping the former finance minister at the heart of policy-making in Zuma's first cabinet.

Gordhan said he needed a few weeks to plan on how the Treasury and new ministries, including the economic development portfolio and national planning commission, would work together.

"Our priority is to ensure that there is continuity in the work that Minister Manuel has been doing in the government," he said.

"I think Minister Manuel, in his last budget, has put in measures that gave us some assurance that we will be not as bad off as some of the rest of the world."

Gordhan said there would be an unfolding examination of the global environment and Treasury would decide whether certain policies were working or new things needed to be done to ensure South Africa copes with the global crisis.

"President Zuma has been saying that what we require is continuity and certainty on the one hand, but then we live in a world at the same time that is changing quite dramatically."

The financial crisis had made a huge impact within the financial sector and the real economy all over the world.

Countries are now looking at what they could do next.

Gordhan headed the South African Revenue Service since 1999, serving under Manuel, and has been praised for turning the tax authority into an efficient body that has repeatedly collected revenue over target.

Gordhan, of south Asian descent, was a member of parliament between 1994 and 1998 for the ANC. He played a leading role in drafting the present Constitution.

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