South Africa GDP Contracts 1.2% in First Quarter of 2016
- GDP forecast to expand at slowest pace since 2009 this year
- S&P and Fitch affirmed credit rating one level above junk
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South Africa’s economy contracted in the first three months of the year as mining and farming output shrunk.
Gross domestic product declined an annualized 1.2 percent in the first quarter, compared with the previous three months when it expanded by 0.4 percent, the statistics office said in a report released on Wednesday in the capital, Pretoria. The median of 21 economist estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for a 0.1 percent contraction.