The South African economy grew by 3% in the second quarter of 2013, Statistics SA said on Tuesday (27 August).<\/p>\n
This was compared to a 0.9% rise in the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first quarter of the year, Stats SA said.<\/p>\n
And while the DA<\/a> welcome the improved GDP annualised growth rate of 3.0%, it said that with the country\u00a0entering strike season, “sadly, economic growth in the third quarter is likely to slow down again”.<\/p>\n The rand has also weakened against the dollar in recent sessions, bid at\u00a0R10.40 amid a lack of\u00a0investor confidence in emerging markets and continued labour unrest.<\/p>\n A softening of the local currency would\u00a0likely translate\u00a0into an increase in prices of consumer electronics. \u00a0A\u00a0weakening of the rand-dollar exchange rate has a domino effect on the prices of gadgets such as personal computing devices and televisions, local vendor Mustek warns.<\/p>\n It also has an impact on the petrol price, which has skyrocketed in recent months. On August 7,\u00a0the price reached new record highs to R13.23 a litre in Gauteng\u00a0for 95 Octane, while at the coast it shifted up to R12.86 a litre.<\/p>\n The political party said that the reported 5.0% decrease in primary sector economic growth during the second quarter \u2013 a sector that should be at the forefront of job creation in the economy,\u00a0is “extremely worrying to note”.<\/p>\n “Our economic growth prospects remain far from what is needed to create jobs for the nearly 8 million unemployed South Africans.<\/p>\n “With 1.4 million South Africans joining the ranks of the unemployed since President Zuma took office in 2009, much still needs to be done to build a growing economy that creates jobs,” the DA said.<\/p>\n The party said that the National Development Plan (NDP) recognises that the only way to create jobs and eliminate unemployment and poverty is to create sustained economic growth exceeding 5%.<\/p>\n The Reserve Bank<\/a> recently revised our economic growth forecast for 2013 down to 2% while the rest of Africa is expected to grow at an average rate of 5.5% this year. Our economic growth is also lagging far behind other developing economies like Thailand (4.3%), Indonesia (5.9%) and Chile (4.6%).<\/p>\n The main contributors to the increase in economic activity in the second quarter of 2013 were the manufacturing industry (1.7%), finance, real estate and business services (0.8%) and the wholesale, retail and motor trade; catering and accommodation industry (0.4%).<\/p>\n Sectors which weighed included the mining and quarrying industry at -0.3% and the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry at -0.1%.<\/p>\n SA internet holding back economic growth<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Positives to weak rand: analysts<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nMore on the South African economy<\/h3>\n