[LISTEN] Ramaphosa: Don't be fearful, we are not in recession
President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged South Africans to not panic as the country is not in a recession but a technical recession.
This comes after Statistics South Africa announced that the economy contracted in the first and second quarter of 2018.
He was speaking in Pietermaritzburg as part of the African National Congress (ANC) Thuma Mina election campaign.
"Right now, we are facing what people are saying is a technical recession and it's largely due to the performance of agriculture. Agriculture did not perform as highly as we thought and some people are saying it's because of the late rains and late harvest and it's bound to correct itself in the next quarter," says Ramaphosa.
"I am saying we should not be fearful and think that we are in a recession, we are not, and this is going to be corrected. I have no doubt about it and secondly, and we should not forget that we have faced such a situation before, economies go through cyclical processes and economies grow and go down all the time," added Ramaphosa.
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He said government will respond to the technical recession in the next few days.
"We are going to respond to this moment we are going through and in a number of days, we are going to give a government response on what do we want to do to inject more impetus into our economy. So, we are a government that is responsive and watches everything, we keep our finger on all that is happening."