Agriculture was the ray of light in 2025, with the sector growing by more than 17% compared to 2024.
- The SA economy grew at the strongest rate in three years, but growth was still weaker than expected.
- In 2025, GDP is expected to increase by 1.1%, with agriculture increasing by 17%.
- But the construction (-4.4%) and manufacturing (-1.2%) sectors declined last year.
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South Africa's economy is projected to grow 1.1% in 2025, the first time in three years that growth has exceeded 1%.
However, growth is below the Reserve Bank's forecast of 1.3% and the National Treasury's forecast of 1.4%.
Annual economic growth.
According to Statistics SA, gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.4% quarter-on-quarter in the last quarter of 2025, marking the fifth consecutive quarterly expansion.
Third quarter growth was cut to 0.3% from the previous estimate of 0.5%. Despite overall growth, the sector-by-sector picture looks less rosy, with half of the 10 sectors shrinking in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. The largest growth, 1.4%, came from financial services, followed by trade (0.9%). Agriculture, government services and personal services all increased by 0.4%.
Quarter-on-quarter growth.
The worst quarterly performance was for utilities (electricity and water) at -2.2%, followed by construction (-1.3%), mining and manufacturing (both -0.6%), and transportation (-0.3%).
Agriculture was the ray of light in 2025, with the sector growing by more than 17% compared to 2024.
But three sectors declined last year: construction (-4.4%), utilities (-4.3%) and manufacturing (-1.2%).
Agriculture was the top performing sector in 2025, after the worst performance in 2024.
The nominal value of GDP exceeded R2 trillion for the first time.
Expenditure on GDP grew by 1.4% over the whole of 2025 and by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter, marking the fifth consecutive quarterly increase.
Exports decreased by 0.6% but imports increased by 0.5%
Domestic consumption increased by 1.2% from the third to fourth quarter. This was the seventh consecutive quarterly growth number. There was a significant increase in expenditure on durable goods by 3% and on semi-durable goods by 2%.
Gross fixed capital formation grew by 1.3%, up from 1.4% in the previous quarter, which in turn followed three quarterly contractions. Fixed capital formation – spending on buildings, machinery and vehicles, indicating the expansion of production capacity – is an important indicator of business sentiment and the basis of long-term growth.
Consumer expenditure on quarterly basis.
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