South Africa GDP Growth Rate

Last Release

Dec 31, 2022

Actual

-1.3

Units In

1.6

Frequency

Quarterly

Next Release

Jun 04, 2025

Time to Release

2 Months 29 Days 12 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 expanded by 0.6% in Q4 2024, recovering from a revised 0.1% contraction in the prior quarter. While the growth fell short of the 0.9% forecast, it was enough to prevent the country from entering a recession. Three sectors showed positive growth, with agriculture (+17.2%) contributing the most, followed by trade (+1.4%) and finance (+1.1%). On the demand side, household consumption (+1.1%) played a key role in driving growth, supported by low inflation and two interest rate cuts in the second half of last year. Meanwhile, both government spending (-0.8%) and fixed investment (-0.7%) decreased. Inventories added 0.2 percentage points, while net exports had no impact, with exports and imports rising by 2.1% and 2.0%, respectively. On a yearly basis, the GDP rose by 0.9% in Q4, following an upwardly revised 0.4% increase in the previous period. The economy expanded by 0.6% in 2024, the slowest growth since 2020, after a revised 0.7% increase in the previous year.