Agriculture driving economic rebound
On the back of a 0.6% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) contraction between January and March 2017, the economy recorded q-o-q growth of 2.8% and 2% in April-June and July-September, respectively. The upturn pushed year-on-year (y-o-y) expansion over the January-to-September period to 1%.
Much of this growth was driven by the agricultural, forestry and fisheries sector, which rebounded from a drought in 2016 to increase by 21.9% y-o-y over the first nine months of 2017. In particular, the sector’s third-quarter expansion of 44.2% was the largest quarterly jump in more than 20 years.
Mining also made solid gains throughout the year, with higher gold and platinum output in the first nine months helping to drive y-o-y expansion of 4.3%.
Elsewhere, the transport and storage sector expanded by 1.2% from January to September, personal services rose by 1.1%, and finance and real estate services edged up by 1%. Manufacturing, however, recorded a 1.2% decline, despite a third-quarter rebound.
Significantly, household consumption continued to expand, rising by 1.4% in the first nine months and helping to boost broader economic activity.
Another positive sign was the recovery of trade figures; the country registered a trade surplus of R51bn ($3.8bn) from January to October, a significant improvement on the R10bn ($742.7m) deficit recorded for the same period in 2016. The strong result was in part due to higher shipments of coal and iron ore, and could be helped further should gold and platinum production rise in 2018.
Inflation also dipped throughout much of 2017, falling from 6.6% in January to 4.8% as of the end of October, according to official statistics. The October result meant that inflation remained under the central bank’s upper band target of 6% for the seventh month in a row.
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