SouthAfrica 3rd quarter GDP up by 1.4%: StatsSA
November 25, 2014, 9:55 am

Twenty years after anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela swept the African National Congress to power, the South African government is struggling to reduce social inequality [AP]

Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday the seasonally adjusted real GDP at market prices for the third quarter of 2014 increased by an annualised rate of 1.4 per cent compared with an increase of 0.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2014.

“The main contributors to the increase in economic activity for the third quarter of 2014 were finance, real estate and business services and the wholesale, retail and motor trade; catering and accommodation industry (each contributing 0,5 of a percentage point), general government services (0,3 of a percentage point) and the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry and the transport, storage and communication industry (each contributing 0,2 of a percentage point). A negative contribution was recorded by the manufacturing industry (-0,4 of a percentage point),” Stats SA said in a statement.

“The unadjusted real GDP at market prices for the third quarter of 2014 increased by 1,4 per cent compared with the third quarter of 2013. The estimates of GDP for the first nine months of 2014 compared with the corresponding period in 2013 increased by 1,5 per cent,” the report on Tuesday added.

New Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene has admitted that this year’s growth target of 2.7 per cent now looks unattainable owing to crippling mining strikes.

Twenty years after anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela swept the African National Congress to power, the South African government is struggling to reduce social inequality.

The ANC, however, claims it has built over 3 million houses, improved access to electricity and water and provided social grants to over 15 million people.

A 2013 Oxfam report warns that, “in South Africa, between 2010 and 2020, more than a million additional people will likely be pushed into poverty if interventions do not stem the country’s rapid inequality growth”.

The report, however, also pointed out that South Africa’s Gini coefficient — a widely used equality indicator — rose to 70 per cent in 2008, one of the highest levels in the world, from 66 per cent in 1993.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Germany grew 0.1 per cent in the quarter between July and September, Germany’s Federal Statistics Office said on Tuesday morning.

TBP and Agencies