South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) rebounded by a massive 66.1% in the third quarter of the year, reflecting the economy’s recovery from the height of the Covid-19 lockdown. This is on a seasonally adjusted and annualised basis.
Stats SA cleared up its GDP figures after some confusion during the second quarter release, which showed a 51% decline in GDP due to lockdown.
The data reflects the latest quarter compared to the immediate preceding quarter, e.g. 2020-Q3 with 2020-Q2.
According to Stats SA, there are seasonal differences between quarters such as weather conditions influence agriculture production, holidays of Easter and the festive season influence trade, transport and accommodation, and year-end closures influence construction and many business services – which adds complication to the assessment.
To ensure that these comparisons remain valid, the data is seasonally adjusted. The quarter-on-quarter growth rate can be annualised to show what the annual (i.e. year-on-year) rate would be if the quarter-on-quarter rate were to occur four times in succession.
However, the annualised rate only provides a crude forecasting model that is useful in times of stable economic performance, but less so in a highly volatile environment, the stats body warned
