Johannesburg — SA's economy may be more like those of the UK and US than those of Germany or France -- or the emerging Asian economies.

That, at least, is what growth figures released over the past couple of weeks seem to indicate. We will know only tomorrow just how badly SA's economy did in the second quarter of this year. But the Reserve Bank has already indicated it will be another negative quarter, with the monetary policy committee commenting last week that though the global economy might have reached its lower turning point, SA's economy appeared to be lagging behind international developments. The market now expects that SA's economy will have contracted by about 2,3% in the second quarter.

That's not as bad as the first quarter's 6,4% contraction. And it's not out of line with the UK and US economies, both of which continued to contract in the second quarter. But contrast that with Germany and France, both of which surprised markets last week when their economies swung into positive territory in the second quarter, growing at annualised rates of 0,3%. And then there are the four emerging Asian economies that have so far reported second-quarter growth figures: China, Indonesia, South Korea and Singapore all grew at annualised rates of more than 10%, thanks mainly to better exports and fiscal stimulus packages.

The contrast between the revivals in Germany and France and the continuing declines in the US and UK led some to punt the superiority of the Continental European form of capitalism to the Anglo-Saxon version. The two European economies were boosted by better trade performances as well as by higher consumer spending, the product in part of "cash for clunkers" programmes put in place to boost car sales and combat recession. And their economic performance was despite the fact that their governments did far less in the way of fiscal stimulus than did the US or UK. Not that they are out of the woods yet: year on year, Germany's economy is still down by more than 7%. And since much of the rest of Europe is still shrinking, the euro zone as a whole was still sliding in the second quarter.

Nor is it clear that Asia (or indeed the global economy) is yet in sustainable recovery mode. A big factor that drove second-quarter recoveries in export-led markets such as Germany's and China's was that globally, businesses began to rebuild stocks after they ran them down sharply late last year and early this year. Whether that trend will continue remains to be seen.

Either way, SA hasn't benefited much so far. So why is it lagging? One possible answer is that just as the impact of the global economic downturn hit us later than it did many countries, so the upturn -- if it is one -- will take longer to help us. Lower interest rates have yet to start turning consumer spending around and SA's most important trading partners, in Europe and Japan, haven't yet recovered enough to have a big impact on demand for SA's manufactured and mining exports. China's growth, for example, will boost the global economy and so ultimately help SA, but it has little direct effect on SA since few of our exports go there.

But another reason SA may be lagging is precisely that our economy has much in common with the consumption-led US and UK economies, and not nearly enough in common with the export and investment led economies of emerging Asia, or even Germany. Recovery in the Anglo-Saxon economies has been held back by high household debt levels and the bursting of house price bubbles -- so that even though banks have been bailed out and monetary policy is very loose, consumers still don't want to borrow or to spend. In SA too, household debt is high, consumer confidence is at rock bottom in response to cuts in bonuses and fears of retrenchments, and business confidence has been savaged too. Private sector credit grew by a miniscule 2,2% in June, and though banks are blamed for making it more difficult to borrow, it's clear from the sharp drop in applications for credit that consumers and businesses aren't too keen to take on more debt.

So even though there are plus factors -- such as the Soccer World Cup -- that will kick in next year, it could be a while before SA sees a meaningful recovery.

While Germany and France have posted surprising second- quarter recoveries, SA is more likely to follow limping US and UK