Five reasons Cyril Ramaphosa needs to panic about the economy right now
Shock GDP number adds to SA's economic woes as the president faces bleak summer of discontent
1. The country is now officially in recession SA has plunged into a recession with a surprise 0.7% contraction in the second quarter of 2018. “We are in recession. We reported a contraction in the first quarter even with revisions, and now in the second quarter with a fall of 0.7%, we are in recession,” statistician-general Risenga Maluleke said in Pretoria on Tuesday. This is despite expectations from many economists that SA would narrowly miss a recession. The Bloomberg consensus was 0.6% growth.
2. The rand is at its weakest since 2016 under Zuma As news of the recession broke, the currency dropped dramatically to levels it last saw in June 2016. It broke through the R15 to the dollar level shortly before the GDP figures were released and then declined very quickly when the number became official...
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