COVID-19: South Africa’s recession continues as economy contracts by 51%

South Africa’s economy contracted by 51 percent in the second quarter of 2020, data released by the country’s statistics agency has shown.

Stats SA said, on Tuesday, that the contraction was due to the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions since the end of March 2020.

This is the fourth consecutive contraction been witnessed by the country after it witnessed it first contracted by 0.8 percent in the third quarter of 2019.

In Q4 2019, the gross domestic product contracted by 1.4 percent and the economy slipped into its second recession of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration.

By Q1 2020, the country’s woes worsened as the economy shrank by 2 percent.

On a year-on-year basis, the economy shrank by 17 percent and it is projected to shrink by 7.2 percent in 2020.

Other countries have also been affected by the pandemic including Brazil by 11.4 percent, India by 23.9 percent and Nigeria by 6.1 percent.

South Africa, like other countries around the world, went imposed lockdown restrictions in March to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

It also banned the sales of cigarettes, alcohol and items that were classified as non-essential.

As of Monday, September 7, South Africa had recorded 639,362 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 15,004 deaths.

Before the pandemic hit, the South African economy had been besieged by corruption allegations in the government and recurring power outages that have affected production.

Photo credit: The New York Times