South Africa Manufacturing

Manufacturing production recovers in March

Latest reading: Manufacturing production was up 0.8% on a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis in March, following a 1.8% drop in the previous month; March’s reading overshot market expectations. Relative to the prior month's figures, readings in March improved for petroleum, chemical products, rubber and plastic products (-0.6% on a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis vs -1.6% in February), food and beverages (+1.7% vs -1.1% in February), basic iron and steel, non-ferrous metal products, metal products and machinery (+2.0% vs -0.1% in February) and wood and wood products, paper, publishing and printing (-2.8% vs -3.2% in February). On a year-on-year basis, manufacturing output increased 0.9% in March, following a 2.3% decline in the previous month.

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.

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