Promoting faster growth and poverty alleviation through competition is particularly important for South Africa, which is facing weak economic growth and limited fiscal resources and has to look to avenues outside the fiscal space to stimulate faster sustainable growth and progress towards its ultimate goal of eliminating poverty, outlined in the 2030 National Development Plan (NDP). The update presents a candid assessment of South Africa’s economic prospects. With growth declining in per capita terms the NDP goals are moving further out of reach. South Africa urgently needs fundamental reforms to kick start growth and promote job creation. Advancing with reforms to improve the lives of South Africans is particularly attractive, since they hold the potential to boost growth and speed up poverty alleviation. Competition policy demonstrates the power of bold reform to ease pressures in times of a tight public purse. The report is organized as follows: section one presents economic developments and prospects, and section two presents promoting faster growth and poverty alleviation through effective competition policy.