Economists have mixed reactions as to whether South Africa will evade a technical recession this quarter or not. Statistics South Africa on Tuesday release the second quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers.
The first quarter GDP numbers recorded negative 3.2%. Economists expect GDP to improve slightly in the second quarter. Another negative contraction in GDP would mean the country is in a technical recession.
Nedbank senior Economist Nicky Weimar believes that the GDP numbers will be slightly better than those of the first quarter. She says manufacturing, retail and mining increased during the second quarter.
“GDP will grow by 2.8% quarter on quarter and over the quarter most industries fared slightly better than then they did in the first quarter. The reality was that the first quarter wasn’t a perfect storm, we had the worst of load shedding since the 2008 electricity crisis, we also had a marked slow-down in global economic activity and commodity prices and we had that sharp spike in fuel prices that placed pressure on household disposable income, and the second quarter some of those factors reversed, not all of them, says Weimer.
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