South Africa’s economy has shown a slight growth as it recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, with gross domestic product (GDP) having increased by 1.6 percent between July and September, a senior official has said.
Announcing this on Tuesday, Deputy Director General for Economic Statistics, Joe de Beer, said the biggest contributors were the agriculture, forestry and fishing industries, which increased by 19.2 percent in the third quarter, contributing 0.5 of a percentage point to the GDP growth.
Net exports also contributed positively to growth in expenditure on GDP in the third quarter, he added.
“Exports of goods and services increased by 4.2 percent, largely influenced by increased trade in mineral products, base metals and articles of base metals, vegetable products and paper products,” de Beer said.
He added: “Imports of goods and services increased by 0.6 percent, driven largely by increases in mineral products, and animal and vegetable fats and oils.”
He said over the three months under review, increased economic activities were reported for field crops and horticulture products.
The third quarter growth is a huge improvement from a negative growth of 0.7 percent in the second quarter of 2022, the official said.
NM/jn/APA