{"id":839619,"date":"2025-10-11T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=839619"},"modified":"2025-10-10T16:22:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:22:25","slug":"the-one-province-in-south-africa-showing-the-best-economic-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/839619\/the-one-province-in-south-africa-showing-the-best-economic-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"The one province in South Africa showing the best economic growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Limpopo has seen the most economic growth in South Africa, while Gauteng comfortably remains the largest contributor to the economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A comparison from Stats SA has shown the economic growth rates among the nation\u2019s provinces, which give insights into the current state of the nation\u2019s regional economies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the nine provinces studied, six recorded economic activity growth in 2024 – the last full year of data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Limpopo registered the highest growth rate of 0.9%, far higher than the national average of 0.5%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Limpopo\u2019s growth was driven by two industries: finance, which includes real estate and business services, and personal services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other industries in Limpopo that record gains include utilities, such as transport & communication, general government, manufacturing and trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although agriculture, construction and mining performed poorly, it was not enough to derail Limpopo\u2019s positive showing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gauteng had the next highest growth at 0.8% in 2024, while the Western Cape was third at 0.7%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finance was also a major contributor to growth in Gauteng and the Western Cape, with notable support from personal services and utilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finance was the main growth driver across Gauteng, Western Cape and Limpopo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other provinces that saw growth included Free State at 0.5%, KZN at 0.4% and Mpumalanga at 0.3%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three provinces recorded contractions, namely the Eastern Cape at 0.2%, and the North West and Northern Cape, with 0.1% declines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA said that the Eastern Cape saw declines in seven of the 10 industries, with trade, manufacturing and agriculture being the most negative contributors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

North West also disappointed, pulled lower by trade, agriculture, transport, construction, manufacturing and mining. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The national statistics agency said that softer agricultural production was the Northern Cape’s most considerable drag on growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although six of the nine provinces recorded growth, this growth is still not enough to solve many of the nation’s largest challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As South Africa\u2019s population grows at around 1.5% each year, any growth less than this will result in GDP per capita contractions, meaning that South Africans are getting poorer.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Top dog unchanged<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although there are several ups and downs across the provinces, there was little change in provincial contributions to the South African economy in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gauteng remains the largest, accounting for a third of national output. Even if the next two largest contributors, namely the Western Cape and KZN, were combined, their GDP impact would still be less than Gauteng. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA also noted that the top four largest industries across the nation\u2019s provinces include finance, personal services, mining, manufacturing and trade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mining was the main driver of economic activity in Mpumalanga, North West and Northern Cape, and the second largest in Limpopo, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finance was the most influential industry in Gauteng, the Western Cape and the Free State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personal services, which include health and education, were the largest industry in KZN, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economic activity is not evenly distributed across the nation. For instance, agriculture is mainly concentrated in the Western Cape, KZN, and Free State. These provinces at 56% of the national agricultural production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mining mainly takes place in the North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga, while Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape are responsible for the bulk of South African manufacturing value added.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Stats SA has broken down the provincial growth figures for South Africa, with Limpopo, Gauteng and the Western Cape seeing the highest growth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":839628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1809],"class_list":["post-839619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839619","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839619"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839643,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839619\/revisions\/839643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}