{"id":643777,"date":"2022-11-17T08:31:35","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T06:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=643777"},"modified":"2022-11-17T08:32:05","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T06:32:05","slug":"its-going-to-be-a-close-call-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/643777\/its-going-to-be-a-close-call-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s going to be a close call for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa\u2019s economy is likely to have averted a technical recession in the third quarter despite record power outages, key data indicates.<\/p>\n

Better-than-expected mining and manufacturing output are set to outweigh relatively soft retail sales data, suggesting Africa\u2019s most industrialized economy returned to growth in the third quarter after contracting 0.7% in the prior three-month period.<\/p>\n

Mining and manufacturing make up about a fifth of total gross domestic product, while trade, which includes the retail sector, accounts for 13%.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s going to be close, but we do escape a technical recession,\u201d said Sanisha Packirisamy, an economist at Momentum Investments, whose GDP tracker implies quarterly growth of 0.1% to 0.4%.<\/p>\n

“Growth is reasonably soft, and load-shedding has been one of the main factors driving that together with increased headwinds that the consumer is facing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

GDP data for the third quarter, due 6 December, is expected to show how state-owned power company Eskom\u2019s inability to produce enough electricity to meet demand is weighing on output.<\/p>\n

The utility imposed power outages on more than half of the days of the third quarter, leading to a record 160 days of blackouts so far in 2022, according to Bloomberg calculations.<\/p>\n

Quarterly outcomes for the energy-intensive mining and manufacturing industries are \u201csomewhat deceptive, greatly amplified by the low base established in the second quarter, when production was struck down by some combination of the floods in KwaZulu-Natal, power outages, a prolonged strike in the gold-mining industry, and the lockdowns in China,\u201d Nicky Weimar, Nedbank\u2019s chief economist, said in a note prior to Wednesday\u2019s retail-sales release.<\/p>\n

Power outages are projected to shave one percentage point off economic growth this year, the central bank said in October.<\/p>\n

Household spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of GDP, has also come under pressure, with consumers reeling from high fuel and food prices and a cumulative 275 basis points of interest-rate increases since November.<\/p>\n

The South African Reserve Bank and National Treasury both predict the economy will expand by 1.9% in 2022, though the former may revise its forecast on 24 November, when it\u2019s due to announce its final interest-rate decision of the year.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: South Africa\u2019s outlook sours<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s going to be close, but South Africa might actually show growth in Q3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":641707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-643777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643777"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643783,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643777\/revisions\/643783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}