February 2023

14 February 2023 – South Africa’s growth prospects have been dimmed further as the output of both the mining and manufacturing industries – two of key sectors in South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) – contracted significantly in 2022. Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) yesterday said that mining production fell by 3.5% year-on-year in December 2022 […]

13 February 2023 – In 2023 SA assumed the role of chair of the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) bloc of countries, taking over from China, which chaired it last year. While SA has chaired the grouping in 2018, each tenure is different and brings a new opportunity to influence the agenda

10 February 2023 – The poultry industry entered 2023 on a sombre note as it carried through tight margins due to elevated production costs, which were exacerbated by the persistent load shedding. Although South Africa is well supplied with chicken, load shedding had already disrupted operations in December 2022, which saw intermittent availability of certain

9 February 2023 – South Africa is the second largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria, based on a recorded GDP of $66.0 billion in the third quarter of 2022 compared with the Nigerian GDP of $101.0 billion in the same period. The agriculture, transport and manufacturing industries were among the main drivers of growth on the supply side of the economy while

8 February 2023 – SA is suffering its worst bout of electricity rationing yet, with state-owned utility Eskom implementing rolling blackouts on 205 days last year and every day so far in 2023. An index tracking expected business conditions in South Africa’s manufacturing industry rose to an 11-month high in January, with purchasing managers expecting

7 February 2023 – China registered a population decline in 2022 for the first time in 60 years. According to data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the nation was home to 1,412 billion people in 2022, which was 850 000 fewer than in 2021. China now joined a host of other countries, mostly in

6 February 2023 – Industry organisation the Citrus Growers Association of South Africa (CGA) has called on global body the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to urgently establish a panel to adjudicate on the False Coddling Moth (FCM) regime governing the importation of South African oranges to the European Union (EU). CGA has written to Trade, Industry and

3 February 2023 – Slowing demand and heightened load shedding have seen manufacturing activity in South Africa remaining largely flat albeit at a seven-month high at the beginning of 2023. However, manufacturers are expecting business conditions in six months’ time to improve significantly as the global economy looks set to weather the storm of a

2 February 2023 – SA’s trade surplus more than halved in the year to end-December as the Russia-Ukraine war threw a spanner in the works and curbed exports, while imports gained traction over the same period. The cumulative trade surplus was R193.38bn for the rest of 2022, compared with R431.74bn in 2021, the Revenue Service

1 February 2023 – Company liquidations in South Africa exploded by almost a third year on year in December, shows the latest data from Stats SA. And 1,902 companies were liquidated in 2022 — a marginal 1.3% decrease (or 1,932) over 2021. A  startling as the StatsSA figures might be, they don’t quite reflect the current