Johannesburg: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for an imperative action to renovate the country's pandemic-battered economy.

In his State of the Nation Address on Thursday, Ramaphosa said that over the past year, South Africa has undergone a sharp decline in growth and a significant increase in unemployment, reported by Xinhua news agency.

The country's GDP has shrunk 6 percent between the third quarter of 2019 and that of 2020, while unemployment "now stands at a staggering 30.8 percent", with 1.7 million job losses last year, he noted. The President said that the overriding priorities of 2021 are to defeat the pandemic, accelerate the country's economic recovery, implement economic reforms and fight corruption.

Ramaphosa said over 70 billion-rands in tax relief were extended to businesses in distress, while 18.9 billion-rands in loans have been approved for 13,000 businesses through a Covid-19 loan-guarantee scheme.

The administration has also focused on such measures as rolling out massive infrastructure, localizing production and boosting energy generation capacity, he said.

"As a result of the relief measures that we implemented and the phased reopening of the economy, we expect to see a strong recovery in employment by the end of 2020," he noted.

Ramaphosa said South Africa will begin to harness the opportunities presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area, which covers 54 of the 55 African Union members and came into operation on January 1. "The AfCFTA opens a platform for the South African businesses to expand into markets across the continent, and for South Africa to position itself as a gateway to the continent," he said.

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