South Africa: recession avoidable, stagnation may not be

The surprisingly bad fall in South African GDP in Q1 has raised fears that the economy could enter recession in Q2. We’ll know more in the next few weeks as May’s activity figures are published, but as things stand it’s seems more likely that the economy will manage to eke out positive growth, rather than suffer another fall in output, in the current quarter. The key point, however, is that growth will remain extremely weak over the course of the year.