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South Africa's Q2 Economic Growth Quickens To 3.0 Percent 2nd Quarter
27/08/2013
PRETORIA (Reuters) - South Africa's economic growth accelerated in the second quarter of 2013 as the manufacturing sector grew 11.5 percent, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday.
Africa's biggest economy expanded 3.0 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis in the second quarter, compared with 0.9 percent in Q1.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast quarterly growth of 3.3 percent.
The rise in manufacturing was the highest since the first quarter of 2011 and was due to a recovery in base metals, Stats S.A. said. Manufacturing contributes about 15 percent to South Africa's GDP.
However, strikes that hit car manufacturing in August are set to spread to the gold mining industry, which will likely weigh on economic growth in the third quarter.
"We are trying to understand what the impact of today's strikes is and whether we are going to see more strikes in the next week or so," said Jeff Gable, an economist at Absa Capital.
On an unadjusted year-on-year basis, the economy grew 2.0 percent in the second quarter from 1.9 percent in the previous three months.
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