Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has been named the 2013 sub-Saharan Finance Minister of the year by news and analysis website Emerging Markets.

Emerging Markets stated that the prudent fiscal policy led by Gordhan, who became South Africa’s Finance Minister in 2009, at the height of the global economic crisis, had been praised by analysts, especially since South Africa was more exposed than other emerging markets to dangers stemming from an eventual pullback of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve.

In his acceptance speech in Washington, where he had been attending the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Gordhan thanked Emerging Markets for the recognition that South Africa, and its economic team, that had kept the South African economy on track during a difficult time.

"Together with our Nigerian and other colleagues, we hope to make Africa a much greater economy," he said.

Meanwhile, the Minister was critical of the sudden change in the narrative about emerging markets, which, up until the second quarter of this year, were praised for managing their economies well, contributing more than 50% to global economic growth and for lifting large numbers of people above the poverty line.

"Three months later, we are apparently fragile and we are terrible managers of our economies. We, the emerging markets, are here to stay. We live in an interconnected world and, more importantly, we live in an interdependent world. There is no decoupling from you, the advanced economies, and there is no decoupling from us, the emerging markets," Gordhan said.