GDP growth: The GDP climbed 0.8% in the second quarter of 2025, mostly due to a recovery in mining, manufacturing and retail. It was the strongest quarterly GDP growth since 2022. Still, value added in mining and manufacturing was well below their pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Read more.

Employment: Employment edged up slightly in the year to the second quarter of 2025, adding 154 000 jobs (less than 1%), with gains in informal work dampened by sharp losses in domestic employment. By sector, business services, logistics, and construction drove growth, while retail and domestic work contracted. Manufacturing saw only a marginal net gain, with losses in petrochemicals, food, and clothing dampening overall growth. Mining employment continued to decline, shedding 14 000 jobs. Overall, employment now stands 3% above pre-pandemic levels, driven by strong growth in business and social services despite persistent weakness in retail and domestic work. Read more.

Infrastructure: The second quarter of 2025 saw a sharp uptick in Eskom generation, although it remains low compared to a decade ago. Freight transport has inched down over the past year, reflecting slow overall growth. There was, however, a small shift from road to rail as Transnet freight recovered modestly. Read more.

International trade: South Africa posted its ninth straight trade surplus in the second quarter of 2025, but both exports and imports fell in real terms by around 5% year on year. Mining and manufacturing exports weakened, hit by falling commodity prices and high energy costs, while agriculture bucked the trend with an 8% rise. Imports contracted across all sectors, with the sharpest drops in agriculture   (–20%) and mining (–15%). Both exports and imports were still higher than before the pandemic, mostly due to historically elevated prices for minerals despite the decline in the past two years. Read more.

Investment and profitability: Investment continued the downward trend that started in the second quarter of 2023. Over this period, both public and private investment declined. Private investment shrank by 0.4%; the figure for general government was 3.2%, while investment by state-owned companies plummeted 20%. In the first half of 2025, the data showed fluctuations between public and private investment, but the downward trend continued for gross fixed capital formation as a whole. Data on profitability are only available through the first quarter of 2025, when they showed some recovery for both mining and manufacturing. Read more.

Foreign direct investment projects: The TIPS Foreign Direct Investment Tracker monitors FDI projects on a quarterly basis, using published information. Monitoring added 17 projects in the second quarter of 2025, with 10 reporting on their value, for a total of R26.9 billion. Projects were registered across mining, manufacturing, services and utilities. In addition, 13 pre-existing projects were updated. Read more.

Briefing Note 1: The small business finance gap in South Africa - by Luthandolwethu Zondi, Saul Levin and Nothembi Mahlangu. Despite their important role in sustainable economic development, small businesses often face barriers to growth and sustainability, including limited access to formal financing. They secure significantly less external funding than large corporations, creating a persistent financing gap driven by supply and demand-side factors. This briefing note provides more detail on the funding challenges, drawing on a recent TIPS publication, Small business finance landscape and a finance gap in South Africa. Read the Briefing Note online: The small business finance gap in South Africa.

Briefing Note 2: Implications of the new US tariffs for the Southern African Customs Union - by Dylan Kirsten. In April 2025, the United States announced plans to impose so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from Southern African Customs Union member states, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa. The tariffs were announced unilaterally, with no prior engagement, marking a sharp departure from established multilateral trade norms and effectively ending preferential arrangements under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. This briefing note draws on a TIPS, Implications of the US reciprocal tariffs for the Southern African Customs Union. Read the Briefing Note online: Implications of the new US tariffs for the Southern African Customs Union.

Briefing Note 3: TIPS tracker on US trade negotiations - by Danae Govender and Neva Makgetla. This briefing note draws from a forthcoming TIPS publication, TIPS tracker: US trade negotiations, which summarises progress on negotiations as well as the actual implementation of tariffs by the US since the announcement of “reciprocal” tariffs in April 2025. Read the Briefing Note online: TIPS tracker on US trade negotiations.