Dr Rob Davies is South Africa’s minister of trade and industry. According to Davies, the gross domestic product (GDP) figures released on September 6 by Statistics SA for the second quarter, in which the economy grew by 3.3 percent quarter on quarter in 2016, are welcome news.
Davies writes:
This is the fastest economic growth since the last quarter of 2014 and has avoided a technical recession. The growth in GDP in second quarter is significant as the economy contracted by 1.2 percent in the first quarter. The economy is resilient, despite the sluggish global growth, domestic conditions of drought, higher food prices and rising inflation.
The Stats SA figures show positive growth in all three large growth sectors, the primary sector 8.8 percent, secondary sector 5.3 percent and tertiary sector 2 percent. Most notably the growth in manufacturing and mining made the biggest contribution to GDP.
In the second quarter exports increased to R294 billion and South Africa registered a trade surplus with the rest of the world totalling R23bn. Exports of goods and services increased by 18.1 percent.
Our efforts to create an investor-friendly environment are also bearing fruit and we have developed a robust investment pipeline over the past five years. We have converted a number of these projects into committed investments, culminating into launches this year.
To read more from Davies at www.iol.co.za, please click here.
