By: Natasha Archary
Independent Economist Khanyisa Phika was the final C-Suite Executive on the Kaya Biz special broadcast which took place on Tuesday, 05 December.
Gugulethu Mfuphi engaged with various experts to find out whether South Africa won the year, and the touch points were eye-opening.
Crunching the numbers, Phika says it wasn’t surprising when Stats SA shared that the economy decreased by 0.2%.
“Much of the first half of this year saw some resilience that we didn’t expect, particularly because loadshedding was persistent.
But then you started to see a lot of the Transnet greyheads start to show, and businesses have been affected by our railroad infrastructure.
So, when we look at those numbers we see agriculture was hardest hit for the primary sector and that was usually where our resilience came from.
Manufacturing, also not surprising because of the energy crisis and also the transport of some of the goods being exported.”
The third quarter decrease follows a 0.5% expansion in the second quarter as the real output of the primary and secondary sectors contracted.
This as the level of real GDP was 0.7% lower in the third quarter of 2023 compared to a year earlier, while the average level of real output in the first three quarters of 2023 was 0.3% higher than in the corresponding period of 2022.
WATCH: Khanyisa Phika, Independent Economist touch on the SA economy decreasing by 0.2%
Also read: Kaya Biz: C-Suite Discussion Part 3 with Nakampe Molewa
