Chris Hattingh
Chris Hattingh is Executive Director at the Centre for Risk Analysis (CRA), where he leads strategic briefings for clients across South Africa and internationally. His focus areas are trade, investment, economic policy, and foreign policy.
Chris serves on the Executive Board of the Global Trade and Innovation Policy Alliance, sits on the advisory council of the Initiative for African Trade and Prosperity, and holds a Senior Fellow position at African Liberty. He holds an MPhil in Business Ethics from Stellenbosch University.
Manufacturing index hits seven-month low
04 August, 2026
CRA Executive Director Chris Hattingh unpacks South Africa's latest manufacturing data.
US 30-year yields and what they mean for South Africa
03 August, 2026
CRA Executive Director Chris Hattingh discusses the recent upward movement of the US 30-year Treasury bond yield, and what this means for South Africa.
Water reform needs teeth
03 August, 2026
South Africa’s dams are almost full. At the end of June 2026, they stood at 96.6% of capacity. Despite consistently full dams, in 2025 nearly 28% of households endured water interruptions lasting more than 48 hours, and 20% went without water for a cumulative 15 days or more over the year. Thus, while South Africa doesn’t have water shortage, it definitely has a shortage of working systems to deliver it.
South Africa's reform trap: new faces, same broken rules
31 July, 2026
CRA Executive Director Chris Hattingh discusses the latest fallout from the Madlanga Commission hearings.
The SANDF returns to Moscow
31 July, 2026
CRA Executive Director Chris Hattingh discusses the potential fallout from the SANDF's latest Moscow trip.
Tau is right about the decline, but the remedy misses the cause
24 July, 2026
Parks Tau, Minister of Trade, Industry, and Competition, told a defence industry conference in Pretoria this week that South Africa must confront three decades of decline in its arms industry. Defence force acquisitions from local manufacturers fell to R850m in 2017 from R26.2bn in 1989/90. Over the same period research and development funding dropped to about R500m from R6.1bn. Employment across the sector collapsed from 130,000 people across 3,000 firms in 1990 to 13,000 people across 600 firms today.
South African households taking strain
23 July, 2026
CRA Executive Director Chris Hattingh unpacks new data showing the increasing strain under which South African households find themselves.
Why SA cannot subsidise its way out of becoming a failing state
16 July, 2026
South Africa is once again arguing about the Automotive Production and Development Programme (APDP). The key question is not whether this one programme pays for itself, but whether South Africa can keep subsidising firms and sectors while the basic services those firms depend on keep failing.
