South Africa GDP Growth Rate

Last Release

Dec 31, 2022

Actual

-1.3

Units In

1.6

Frequency

Quarterly

Next Release

Sep 03, 2025

Time to Release

2 Months 29 Days 0 Hours

Highest	Lowest	Average	Date Range	Source
13.9 Sep 2020	-17.4 Jun 2020	0.61 %	1993-2022	Statistics South Africa

South Africa is the most developed country in Africa and was the largest until 2014, when it was overtaken by Nigeria. The largest sector of the economy is services which accounts for around 73 percent of GDP. Within services, the most important are finance, real estate and business services (21.6 percent); government services (17 percent); wholesale, retail and motor trade, catering and accommodation (15 percent); and transport, storage and communication (9.3 percent). Manufacturing accounts for 13.9 percent; mining and quarrying for around 8.3 percent and agriculture for only 2.6 percent.

Latest Updates

The South African economy grew by just 0.1% on quarter in Q1 2025, following a downwardly revised 0.4% increase in the previous quarter, while analysts predicted stagnation. Four out of ten industries registered growth, with agriculture (+15.2%) contributing the most, followed by transport (+2.4%), trade (+0.5%) and finance (+0.2%). Manufacturing and mining and quarrying were the biggest drags, declining by 2.0% and 4.1%, respectively, mainly due to persistent inefficiencies in the country's vital infrastructure. On the demand side, growth was positively influenced by household consumption (+0.4%), and inventories. Net trade, however, contributed negatively to expenditure on GDP, as the 1% growth in exports was outpaced by a 2% increase in imports. Fixed investment contracted by 1.7% and government spending fell 0.1%. On a yearly basis, the GDP expanded by 0.8% in Q1, maintaining the same pace as Q4, which marked the strongest growth in a year.