Mining production in South Africa shrank 3.2 percent from a year ago in August 2019, following a downwardly revised 1.4 percent rise in July and against market estimates of a 1.9 percent gain. Output declined for PGMs (-12.5 percent vs 2.9 percent); diamonds (-29.8 percent vs -35.6 percent); coal (-3.4 percent vs 8.7 percent); gold (-5.4 percent vs -13.4 percent); iron ore (-7.8 percent vs 9.6 percent) and building materials (-3.5 percent vs 0.3 percent). In addition, production rose less for nickel (0.4 percent vs 18.9 percent); other metallic minerals (35.4 percent vs 56.9 percent). Meanwhile, higher output was recorded for copper (176.5 percent vs -23.8 percent); manganese ore (34.3 percent vs 16.9 percent); other non-metallic minerals (10.9 percent vs 4.5 percent) and chromium ore (0.7 percent vs -8.6 percent). On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, mining production went up 0.3 percent, recovering slightly from an upwardly revised 4.9 percent slump in the prior month. Mining Production in South Africa averaged -0.09 percent from 1981 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 23.20 percent in October of 2013 and a record low of -17.40 percent in March of 2016.
Mining Production in South Africa is expected to be -3.00 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Mining Production in South Africa to stand at 1.30 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the South Africa Mining Production is projected to trend around 1.40 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models.