South Africa probably avoided a recession last year, saved by strong consumer demand in the fourth quarter as the key mining and manufacturing sectors continued to struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIndustry is basically stagnating,\u201d said Jee-A van der Linde at Oxford Economics, while \u201cthe retail sector will probably provide some growth.\u201d Retail sales expanded 2.1% in the quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The median estimate of 10 economists surveyed by Bloomberg is for the economy to grow 0.8% in the fourth quarter, compared with a 0.3% contraction in the prior three months, according to data that will be published at 11h30 in Pretoria on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consumer spending in the quarter received a boost from benign inflation, two 25 basis point interest-rate cuts in the second half of last year, and pension fund members having early access to part of their retirement savings without penalties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That momentum is expected to carry into 2025, together with a recovery in mining and manufacturing as logistical snarl-ups that have crimped the economy begin to ease, said Razia Khan, Standard Chartered chief economist for Africa and the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u201c2024 figures seem glaring because of the absence of this momentum. But progress is underway, albeit slowly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even so, economists in a separate Bloomberg survey only foresee the economy expanding 1.7% this year. Such an outcome is too low to dent one of the world\u2019s highest unemployment and poverty rates, and much less than the 3% growth rate targeted by the governing coalition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That goal hinges on attracting investment to help modernize the nation\u2019s frayed infrastructure after years of neglect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fixed investment in the past decade has fallen by an average of 1.3% a year, contributing to economic growth averaging less than 1% annually over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the private sector could be put off by threats from US President Donald Trump\u2019s protectionist measures, as well as tensions within the so-called government of national unity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith Trump back, businesses across the spectrum, it\u2019s just too much uncertainty for them to really commit,\u201d Van der Linde said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere could have been a temporary increase in investment during the fourth quarter, during the euphoria of GNU, but from the first half of this year it goes down again due to uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa probably avoided a recession last year, saved by strong consumer demand and spending in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":810442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[1850,2720],"class_list":["post-815093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-bloomberg","tag-gdp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815093","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=815093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":815099,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815093\/revisions\/815099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}