South African economy registers slower pace of growth in Q3, misses market expectations

The South African economy registered a slow pace of growth during the third quarter of this year, missing what market participants had earlier anticipated.

South Africa's economy grew by 0.2 percent in the third quarter of 2016 after expanding by a revised 3.5 percent in the second quarter, data released by Statistics South Africa showed Tuesday.

Gross domestic product rose 0.7 percent on an unadjusted year-on-year basis in the third quarter, compared with 0.6 percent expansion in the previous three months, the agency said. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a quarter-on-quarter GDP expansion of 0.5 percent while the economy was seen expanding 0.7 percent year-on-year.

The main components which extended their cooperation to the GDP growth were the mining and quarrying industry; finance, real estate and business services; and general government services. Mining and quarrying increased by 5.1 percent, largely as a result of higher production in the mining of ‘other’ metal ores, in particular iron ore.

However, agriculture, forestry and fishing declined -0.3 percent, manufacturing by -3.2 percent; electricity, gas and water fell 2.9 percent and trade, catering and accommodation by -2.1 percent. The agriculture, forestry and fishing industry has been in decline for seven consecutive quarters.