By Richard Mantu, tel: (012) 314-2419 

New revised figures of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shows the South African economy grew by 5.6 percent in the third quarter of this year, Statistics South Africa reported today.
 
This follows real annualised economic growth rates of 3.8 percent (revised from 3.6 percent) and 4.5 percent (revised from 3.9 percent) in the first and second quarters of 2004 compared to the fourth quarter of 2003 and the first quarter of 2004 respectively.
 
"There have now been 24 such quarterly increases in a row," said Statistician-General Pali Lehohla today.
 
Releasing the new revised GDP figures as part of the new benchmark and re-basing process that started in 1999, Stats SA said the increase in economic activity was due to increased real value added by finance, real state and business services (1.0 percent) and manufacturing (1.0 percent).
 
Other contributors were the wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants (0.8 percent) and transport, storage and communication industries (0.7 percent).
 
Joe de Beer, Executive Manager of National Accounts at the Stats SA said the new revised rebasing process was necessary to "provide a clearer picture and dynamics of all the industries' inputs and outputs" of the economy.
 
Mr De Beer said they changed from using the 1995 base-year to the 2000 reference year, to get the recent price levels used by industries.
 
Base-year is the reference year in which values at constant prices are calculated.
 
According to the revised estimates, the average annual real economic growth rate was 2.7 percent during the period 1997 to 2003, compared to the previous estimate of 2.4 percent.
 
This is an increased average annual growth of 0.3 percent point compared with the previous estimate.
 
Stats SA announced it had revised all GDP statistics from 1998 to 2003, resulting in an annual 0.3 percent increase in growth figures for the period.
 
"In the more recent years [2000 to 2003], the average annual growth rate is also revised upwards by 0.3 percent point from 2.7 to 3.0 percent," said Stats SA.
 
It said the revised growth rate for the new base year (2000), is 4.2 percent, compared with the previous estimate of 3.5 percent. The real growth rate for 2003 is 2.8 percent, revised from 1.9 percent.
 
The real growth economic growth rate for 1998 was revised downward from 0.8 percent to 0.5 percent.
 
Stats SA also reported that the real annual GDP increased by 2.8 percent in 2003 following an increase of 3.6 percent in 2002.
 
The main contributors to the increase in economic activity in 2003 were the whole and retail trade, hotels and restaurants (0.9 percent), finance, real estate and business services (0.8 percent), transport, storage and communication (0.5 percent) and the mining and quarrying industries (0.3 percent). - BuaNews