SA enters technical recession

In news that analysts hoped to avoid on Tuesday, South Africa officially entered a technical recession.

Stats SA announced that the country’s real gross domestic product had decreased by 0.7% in the second quarter of 2018.

Since GDP contracted by 2.2% in quarter 1, the country was now officially in a technical recession, which means two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

Even though the shrinking of the economy has slowed, agriculture, transport and trade have weighed down the country’s ability to bounce back.

In other news, on Tuesday morning the rand slumped to more than R15 to the US dollar.