{"id":35018,"date":"2017-06-07T10:42:25","date_gmt":"2017-06-07T10:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/south-africa-falls-into-second-recession-in-a\/"},"modified":"2017-06-07T10:42:22","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T10:42:22","slug":"south-africa-falls-into-second-recession-in-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/south-africa-falls-into-second-recession-in-a\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa falls into second recession in a decade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{South Africa has fallen into recession for the first time in eight years after economic growth shrank by 0.7% between January and March.}<\/p>\n<p>The downturn, due to weak manufacturing and trade, follows a 0.3% fall in GDP in the final quarter last year.<\/p>\n<p>It is the first time that economic has slowed for two consecutive quarters &#8211; the technical definition of a recession &#8211; since 2009.<\/p>\n<p>The value of the rand fell by 1% on the currency markets.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts had expected GDP to grow by 0.9% during the first quarter. However, Joe de Beer, deputy director general of Statistics South Africa, said: &#8220;We can now pronounce that the economy is in recession.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;The major industries that contracted in the economy were the trade and manufacturing sectors.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>{{Junk status}}<\/p>\n<p>Africa&#8217;s third-largest economy is under pressure after President Jacob Zuma fired its respected finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>It prompted two credit rating agencies, Standard and Poor&#8217;s and Fitch, to downgrade South Africa&#8217;s credit worthiness to junk.<\/p>\n<p>This means it is more expensive for South Africa to borrow money, because it is seen as having a higher risk defaulting on its debts.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, S&#038;P and Fitch pointed to further concerns about the South African economy, including uncertainty over who will succeed President Zuma as leader of the ruling African National Congress.<\/p>\n<p>A successor is expected to be chosen in December, but Mr Zuma can remain as head of state until an election in 2019.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-20610 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_96365011_528602716.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{South Africa has fallen into recession for the first time in eight years after economic growth shrank by 0.7% between January and March.} The downturn, due to weak manufacturing and trade, follows a 0.3% fall in GDP in the final quarter last year. It is the first time that economic has slowed for two consecutive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-35018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35018"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=35018"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=35018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}