South Africa’s manufacturing production contracted at a faster-than-expected rate in April, marking its second straight monthly fall, data from Statistics South Africa showed on Thursday.
Manufacturing output fell 7.8 percent year-over-year in April, much faster than a revised 0.6 percent decline seen in March. Economists had forecast only a 2.6 percent drop for the current month.
The negative contributions to the annual fall were largely driven by motor vehicles, parts and accessories and other transport equipment, petroleum, chemical products, rubber and plastic products, food and beverages, basic iron and steel and other metal products.
On a monthly basis, manufacturing production decreased 5.4 percent from March, when it rebounded by 0.3 percent. That was well above the expected fall of 2.0 percent.
In the three months to April, manufacturing production was down 0.9 percent from the previous three months.
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