SA slips into recession after negative GDP growth
South Africa has slipped into a technical recession.
Stats SA says the country's economy shrank by 1.4% in the last quarter of 2019.
It was the second consecutive quarterly contraction - after negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in Quarter 3.
Stats SA's Joe De Beer says: "The headline numbers that we are releasing today shows that the GDP contracted in the fourth quarter of 2019 by 1.4 percent. If we compare the fourth quarter with the corresponding period with the previous year, we saw a contraction of 0.5 percent."
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"As we are releasing the results for the fourth quarter it's possible for us to calculate the growth for 2019 in its totality and that comes out as a very small increase of 0.2 percent."
According to Stats SA, seven of the ten industries contracted in Q4. It says transport, trade and manufacturing were the major contributors to the negative growth.
Agriculture also fell 7.6% for a fourth consecutive quarter. Finance, mining and personal services posted positive growth in Q4.
7 of the 10 industries contracted in Q4:2019. Transport and trade were the main drags on overall activity. Finance, mining and personal services registered positive growth.
— Stats SA (@StatsSA) March 3, 2020
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