On Tuesday, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) reported that seasonally adjusted real gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices for the first quarter of this year increased by an annualised rate of 4.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006.
The corresponding real annualised economic growth rates for the four quarters of 2006 were 5 percent, 5.5 percent, 4.5 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively.
The finance, real estate and business services industry (1.
The manufacturing industry (0.
The wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants industry and construction industry (each contributing 0.
The transport and communication industry (0.
The general government sector (0.5 percentage point).
Growth in the construction industry for the quarter, at 21.3 percent, was the highest recorded since the first quarter of 1989. The major driver was non-residential construction.
This includes building activities at airports, the Richards Bay terminal, site preparation for the 2010 soccer World Cup and the Gautrain.
Expenditure on infrastructure by Eskom is another key contributor to growth in the construction sector.
Following an increase of 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006, the seasonally adjusted real value added by the mining and quarrying industry fell at an annualised rate of 7.8 percent during the first quarter of 2007. This slowed growth by 0.5 percentage point.
Mining is the only sector for which a negative growth rate was estimated on an annualised basis. Growth in both the gold and platinum sub-sectors declined for the quarter, while an increase was recorded for coal.
By sector, primary industries recorded negative value- added growth for the first quarter (-4.4 percent), while secondary industries recorded growth of 6.9 percent and the tertiary sector (5 percent).
In terms of relative size, finance, real estate and business services were the largest sector of the economy in the first quarter of 2007 (19.8 percent), followed by manufacturing at 16.4 percent, and wholesale and retail trade, hostels and restaurants (14 percent).
Electricity, gas and water accounted for just 2.1 percent of the economy.
Yesterday it was reported that growth in the consumer price index (CPI) for April was 7 percent. Growth in CPIX, the Reserve Bank's inflation target measure, which excludes mortgage costs, was 6.3 percent, its highest rate since July 2003 when it was 6.6 percent.
Food and petrol prices have been the primary drivers of consumer inflation over the past few months. During April, retail fuel prices increased by 69c per litre, or 11.7 percent.
While year-on-year increases in grain and meat prices have been hovering around 10 percent for several months, it was price increases in fruits, vegetables, fats and oils that have driven inflation higher this month.
Food inflation, is at 8.4 percent this month. The transport index, which includes petrol, increased by 7.7 percent year on year in April.
Last week I noted that a programme of ongoing improvements in the quality of the CPI was well under way.
This included revising the basket of products used to measure price changes; modernising the system for product classification; and conduction a reweighting of the categories of goods, so that the impact on price changes can be measured relative to changes in other categories of goods.
Revisions to the geographical reporting basis of the CPI is another area of improvement. Yesterday's CPI publication, containing data for April 2007, contains changes with regard to some of the places in which price data is collected.
Over the past nine months, Stats SA has conducted research to establish which towns and cities in South Africa have the highest potential levels of consumer expenditure.
Today sees the release of the producer price index for April, which measures inflation at the factory gate; and data on liquidations and insolvencies, electricity generation and distribution, and tourism accommodation.
All of these provide indicators of the state and performance of the economy.
Pali Lehohla is South Africa's statistician-general and head of Statistics SA. For more information on Stats SA and its statistical outputs, including the latest data on mining and manufacturing, visit www.statssa.gov.