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More bad news for manufacturing in SA

Cape Town - Manufacturing production decreased by 4.1% in April 2017 compared with April 2016, data from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) showed on Thursday.

Weak manufacturing was also to blame for pushing South Africa into a technical recession this week after the economy contracted in the first quarter. Manufacturing contributed 0.5% to the overall 0.7% contraction in GDP, with revenue falling to R378bn.

Stats SA said the 4.1% April decline was mainly due to a -6.9% lower production in petroleum, chemical products, rubber and plastic products, contributing -1.7 percentage points to the decrease.

Other factors included motor vehicles, parts and accessories and other transport equipment, which contracted 17.7%, contributing 1.4 percentage points to the decrease, glass and nonmetallic mineral products, which dropped 10.9%, contributing 0.4 of a percentage point, electrical machinery, which fell 16.8%, contributing 0.3 of a percentage point, and furniture and "other" manufacturing, which was down 13.6%, contributing 0.3 of a percentage point to the decline.

Seasonally adjusted manufacturing production increased by 2.3% in April 2017 compared with March 2017. This followed month-on-month changes of -0.4% in March 2017 and -0.4% in February 2017.

Seasonally adjusted manufacturing production decreased by 0.3% in the three months ended April 2017 compared with the previous three months. Four of the ten manufacturing divisions reported negative growth rates over this period.

The largest contributors to the 0.3% decrease were the petroleum, chemical products, rubber and plastic products division (-2.8% and contributing -0.7 of a percentage point) and the food and beverages division (1.5% and contributing 0.4 of a percentage point).

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