Economist Dr Keith Jefferis has warned of negative spill-over effects after the South African economy entered a technical recession at the end of Q2 2017. He, however, said the technical recession is not necessarily a big issue, but the major concern should be that the SA economy – which is by far the biggest in SADC region – has not performed well for many years now. He said the sluggish growth has obviously dragged other smaller economies in the region including Botswana down because if the economy is not growing then demand is suppressed. "Prolonged poor performance of the SA economy is hurting Botswana and the rest of the region, particularly manufacturing and exports. Conversely, if the SA economy was doing well like China or India in the region of 6-7% growth in the whole region would also benefit immensely," he said. A technical recession is a concept when an economy contracts for two consecutive quarters. According to figures from Statistics South Africa, one of South Africa’s highly regarded institutions, the South African economy contracted twice over the last quarter of 2016 (September-December), when it shed 0.3 per cent of GDP and again in the first quarter of 2017 (January-March),…