As had been widely expected, GDP figures released last week were fairly dismal, rounding off a bad year on a downbeat note. Our economy expanded just 0.3% last year, but contracted -0.3% in the final three months. It was again the primary sector, consisting of agriculture and mining, that held back the economy. Agricultural output shrank by 7.8% for the year, while mining contracted by 4.7%, shaving a combined 0.6 percentage points off GDP. The secondary sector — manufacturing, utilities and construction — fared somewhat better, although there was a notable annual decline in the utilities industry, consisting of electricity and water, which contracted by 3.5% compared with 2015. This reflects the impact of the drought and poor mining output on the upstream processing sectors. The manufacturing and construction sectors both grew at an annual rate of 0.7%, but, combined, the secondary sector added nothing to growth. It was again up to the tertiary sector to drag overall GDP growth int...
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