South African mining production rebounded to 2.8% annual growth in June‚ surprising economists who had expected a contraction or‚ at best‚ small growth.
The decline in May’s mining production was revised to 1.8% from the previously reported 2.6%. This means mining may help South Africa escape a recession as defined by two consecutive quarters of a contracting GDP.
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) reported on Tuesday that the three-month seasonally adjusted growth for mining production for June — the figure used to calculate mining’s contribution to second quarter GDP — came to 0.8%.
This will help counter the negative contributions from manufacturing which Stats SA reported a 0.1% contraction to the second quarter’s GDP‚ and retail trade sales‚ which also contributed a 0.1% contraction.
June’s star performer was platinum mines that increased their output by 28.2% from the same month in 2017‚ followed by diamond mines‚ which increased annual output by 18.7%.
Stats SA’s index of volume of mining production‚ which was set to 100 in 2015‚ rose to 108.3 in June from 98.6 points in May. The index was 105.3 points in June 2017.
The total value of sales in current prices from South African mines came to R44.4-billion in June‚ up from R41.6-billion in May and R40.7-billion in June 2017.
BusinessLIVE
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