Wow, South Africa, congrats. You just missed tipping into a recession by a mere 0.7% economic growth in the third quarter of this year. Phew.

Statistics South Africa released the GDP figures on Tuesday, showing that the economy had actually grown by 0.7% between July and September.

The second quarter had a contraction of economic growth of 1.3% and if the third quarter had also seen a contraction, South Africa’s economy would have plummeted into a recession.

Contributing to the growth were the manufacturing industry, finance, real estate and business services, wholesale, retail and motor trade as well as the catering and accommodation industries. The performance of these sectors assisted in pushing the economy into a positive territory despite the negative contributions industries such as mining and quarrying, agriculture, forestry and fishing.

The Reserve Bank’s growth forecasts for the year have been revised down for 2015 and 2016 to 1.4% and 1.5% respectively, but remain unchanged at 2.1% for 2017.

Nominal GDP at market prices during the third quarter of 2015 was R1-tillion – R14-billion more than in the second quarter of 2015, Statistics South Africa said in its third-quarter GDP report. South Africa’s largest industries, as measured by their nominal value added in the third quarter of 2015, were finance, real estate and business services (20.7%) ; general government services (17.6%) ; wholesale, retail and motor trade; catering and accommodation (14.6%); and manufacturing (13.3%).

[source: mg]