The research niche areas of the Economic Research Unit include macroeconomic forecasting; formal retail trade sales forecasting; small and informal business research; regional economic and welfare studies; socioeconomic profiling of the South African Development Community (SADC) and growth estimates for intra-SADC trade and foreign trade prospects.

The research niche areas of the Business Research Unit include trend and structural analysis of the formal and informal business sectors.

Research focus areas

• Business development, funding instruments, public and private partnerships.
• Estimating the size of formal economy / business sector (i.e. number of South African business entities by province, turnover group, industry, gross operating surplus, employment, entrepreneurial activities and business formation and the legal status of businesses).
• Estimating the size of the informal economy / business sector.
• Projecting growth nodes for South African economy.
• Sectoral and macroeconomic modelling.
• Business trends and structural analysis.

The unit operates as a syndicated business research unit consisting of sponsor members that qualify for client specific data packaging and interpretation as well as in-house presentations and workshops.