Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) announced on Tuesday that the country has broken out of the technical recession owing to a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 2.5% in the second quarter of 2017.
Dr Pali Lehohla, the Statistician-General of South Africa announced the figures at a briefing in Tshwane, earlier on Tuesday.
EWN senior reporter, Barry Bateman was at the media briefing. He explains that the biggest contributor was the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry, which increased by 33.6% and contributed 0.7 of a percentage point to GDP growth. While the mining industry increased by 3.9% and contributed 0.3 of a percentage point to GDP growth.
The big thing to take from this is that we have broken out of that technical recession.
— Barry Bateman, EWN senior reporter
The last time we have seen growth in the GDP was in the third quarter of last year and that was just point four percent growth.
— Barry Bateman, EWN senior reporter
Listen to the EWN report here:
This article first appeared on 702 : South Africa breaks free of technical recession
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