Pretoria - Economists are expecting the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), due to be released on Tuesday, to have grown at a lesser pace than initially anticipated.
"I think what has happened globally is that we've started to see some recovery however this has stalled in the last few months. I don't think South Africa is any different. The economy seems to be slowing down and the numbers will reflect that," Investment Solutions economist Chris Hart said on Monday.
Consensus is that growth in the second quarter of 2010 will average 3.6 percent which is lower than the 4.6 percent growth seen in the first quarter of 2010. He predicts that the figure will come to 3.2 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Last week, Reserve Bank deputy governor Daniel Mminele said that while the country's growth trajectory has improved considerably indications are that second quarter growth "is likely to have been less stellar". The Bank expects the economy to grow by an average of 2.9 percent in 2010.
"We have seen a mixed bag of data but we also have seen that the consumer is reviving a little bit and the effects of the World Cup might help," Hart told BuaNews.
In June, retail trade sales rose by 7.4 percent after a higher than expected rise of 4.5 percent in May receiving a boost by World Cup related merchandise.
Mining and manufacturing are not expected to contribute positively to GDP while the services sector is expected to have contributed positively to figures.
"We expect the economy to have remained firm during the quarter, growing by a seasonally adjusted and annualised 3.77 percent, mainly supported by growth in the finance, real estate and business services sector which benefited from improved local consumer spending and boost from the FIFA World Cup.
"However, the quarterly GDP growth rate is likely to moderate off the higher base established in the first quarter of the year, dragged down by lower mining production and subdued growth in manufacturing output," said Nedbank in its weekly economic commentary .
Apart from the GDP figures Stats SA is due to release the July Consumer Price Index on Wednesday.
"We expect consumer inflation to have eased further to 3.8 percent in June after falling 4.2 percent in the previous month. July's inflation will mainly be driven by the 25 percent increase in electricity prices, which will add 0.46 percentage points to the monthly increase of around 1 percent," said Nedbank.
Consensus is that CPI will ease to 4 percent year on year in July.
