GDP contracts for 3rd consecutive quarter
The country’s economy continued to contract during the first quarter of the year, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) falling by 2%.
It’s the third consecutive contraction for an economy already in recession.
“First thing that we are picking up in Q1 of 2020, the GDP contracted by 2% and this is the third consecutive quarter that we are seeing such a negative growth,” Statistician-general Risenga Maluleke said on Tuesday morning.
“The last time we had a drop in this proportion, was the first quarter of 2019 where we had a fall of 2.8%,” Maluleke added.
The latest GDP figures does not include post lockdown data on the economy’s performance, but Maluleke said Stats SA has seen the effects from other countries.
“As you can see in imports and exports, other nations had already started imposing bans before our lockdown. So there is a lot of equipment that could not reach us which has affected the manufacturing industry.”
Both manufacturing and mining contributed the biggest negative growth towards the GDP.
The mining and quarrying industry decreased by 21.5% while manufacturing contracted by 8.5%.