Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)

Mining, production data set to show continuing climb

- HELMO PREUSS

MANUFACTUR­ING and mining production data should dominate the release calendar next week, but there are other releases that will add colour to how the economy started the year.

The manufactur­ing data is the first release and that will be published on Tuesday by Statistics South Africa.

In the gross domestic product release for 2017, manufactur­ing grew by 4.3% quarter-on-quarter (q/q) on a seasonally adjusted annualised basis in the fourth quarter, and the February data should show that this growth momentum carried into 2018, as many shops are very low on inventorie­s and have frequent stock- outs.

Manufactur­ing production grew by 2.5% year- on- year (y/y) in January 2018 after a 0.5% drop in 2017. There has been a fairly steady upward progressio­n in the seasonally adjusted manufactur­ing production index since March 2017 and the index in December 2017 was up a massive 5% since then.

The gains in manufactur­ing are broad-based, with seven out of the 10 sectors showing a q/q rise in the fourth quarter. In January 2018 food production was up 10.1% y/y, but chemical production was down 3.2% y/y.

The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry Trade Activity Index on Thursday will help to show how economic indicators have reacted in March after a downturn in February.

The seasonally adjusted South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry Trade Activity Index fell to 42 in Feb-

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