{"id":5323,"date":"2015-08-25T11:30:53","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T09:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/?p=5323"},"modified":"2015-08-26T09:25:37","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T07:25:37","slug":"south-africas-economy-contracts-in-the-second-quarter-of-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/?p=5323","title":{"rendered":"South Africa\u2019s economy contracts in the second quarter of 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa\u2019s economy contracted by 1,3% (seasonally adjusted and annualised) in the second quarter of 2015, according to preliminary estimates of real gross domestic product (GDP) released by Stats SA.<\/p>\n<p>The quarter-on-quarter decrease in overall economic activity was characterised by five of the ten main industry groups shrinking in size, while the other five experienced some growth<sup>1<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>The agriculture industry experienced the largest fall in activity, contracting by 17,4% quarter-on-quarter. With warnings that South Africa is currently experiencing its worst drought since 1992<sup>2<\/sup>, decreases in the production of field crops (such as maize, sunflower and sugar cane) and horticultural products (such as citrus subtropical fruit) contributed to the industry\u2019s decline.<\/p>\n<p>The mining industry contracted by 6,8% quarter-on-quarter, mainly as a result of lower production in the mining of coal and iron ore.<\/p>\n<p>Manufacturing activity declined by 6,3% quarter-on-quarter mainly as a result of decreases in two manufacturing divisions, namely basic iron and steel, non-ferrous metal products, metal products and machinery; and petroleum, chemical products, rubber and plastic products.<\/p>\n<p>Electricity and trade industries were the other two industries that experienced quarter-on-quarter decreases in activity, falling by 2,9% and 0,4% respectively.<\/p>\n<p>The following industries grew over the same period: finance (+2,7%), personal services (+1,3%), government (+0,6%), transport (+0,2%) and construction (+0,2%).<\/p>\n<p>The last time South Africa\u2019s economy experienced a quarter-on-quarter contraction was in the first quarter of 2014, when overall economic activity decreased by 1,6%.<\/p>\n<p>Other quick facts from the release:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The unadjusted real GDP at market prices increased by 1,2 per cent year-on-year.<\/li>\n<li>The estimate of real GDP for the first six months of 2015 increased by 1,6 per cent compared with the corresponding period in 2014.<\/li>\n<li>Nominal GDP was estimated at R991 billion for the second quarter of 2015.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><sup>1<\/sup> Download the gross domestic product (GDP) release <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/publications\/P0441\/P04412ndQuarter2015.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><sup>2<\/sup> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/SouthAfrica\/News\/The-high-cost-of-SAs-worst-drought-in-23-years-20150708\" target=\"_blank\"><i>The high cost of SA\u2019s worst drought in 23 years.\u00a0<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/GDP-Q2-2015_Infographic_v021.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-5343\" alt=\"GDP Q2 2015_Infographic_v02\" src=\"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/GDP-Q2-2015_Infographic_v021-300x184.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/GDP-Q2-2015_Infographic_v021-300x184.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/GDP-Q2-2015_Infographic_v021-1024x628.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/GDP-Q2-2015_Infographic_v021-100x61.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/GDP-Q2-2015_Infographic_v021.jpg 1481w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa\u2019s economy contracted by 1,3% (seasonally adjusted and annualised) in the second quarter of 2015, according to preliminary estimates of real gross domestic product (GDP) released by Stats SA. The quarter-on-quarter decrease in overall economic activity was characterised by five of the ten main industry groups shrinking in size, while the other five experienced&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/?p=5323\" class=\"btn btn-mini btn-info pull-right\" style=\"margin:10px 30px;\">read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-growth","category-economy-data-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5323"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5345,"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323\/revisions\/5345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}