Manufacturing activity bounces back in April

Latest reading: Manufacturing output rose 1.9% in month on month seasonally adjusted terms in April, which contrasted March's 2.5% decrease. The print marked the best reading in a year. Looking at the details of the release, the notable turnaround was largely due to rebounds in petroleum, chemical products, rubber and plastic products; basic iron and steel, non-ferrous metal products, metal products and machinery production; plus wood and wood products, paper, publishing and printing. On an annual basis, manufacturing output plummeted 6.3% in April, which was notably below March’s 1.2% fall and marking the worst result since March 2024. Accordingly, the trend pointed down, with the annual average variation of manufacturing production coming in at minus 1.7% in April, down from March's minus 0.9% reading.

How should you choose a forecaster if some are too optimistic while others are too pessimistic? FocusEconomics collects South African manufacturing projections for the next ten years from a panel of 3 analysts at the leading national, regional and global forecast institutions. These projections are then validated by our in-house team of economists and data analysts and averaged to provide one Consensus Forecast you can rely on for each indicator. By averaging all forecasts, upside and downside forecasting errors tend to cancel each other out, leading to the most reliable manufacturing forecast available for South African manufacturing.

Download one of our sample reports to visualize what a Consensus Forecast is and see our South African manufacturing projections.

Want to get access to the full dataset of South African manufacturing forecasts? Send an email to info@focus-economics.com.