South Africa fell in to reporting a seasonally-adjusted annualized contraction of 1.8 per cent quarter-to-quarter for Q4 2008 after a drastic fall in manufacturing output significantly damaged the economy.

The country’s statistics bureau, Statistics South Africa announced economic data Tuesday, comparing the Q4 contraction to the Q3 growth of 0.2 per cent. Additionally, CPI data marked a 9% cost of living increase as of January 2009.

The manufacturing industry, clearly the heaviest hit, lost an annualized 4 per cent of its total output for the fourth quarter, while the utilities industries lost a small 0.1 per cent. Other industry categories, with the exception of the retail trade, hotels, restaurants and mining industries, which reported 0 per cent change, were marked with negligible growth. Quarter-to-quarter, manufacturing took a record hit of 22 per cent.

“It’s surprising how robust some sectors are, such as government, finance and personal services but the magnitude of the drop in manufacturing brought it all down,” said Rashad Cassim, the director general at Statistics South Africa. deputy director general at Statistics South Africa.

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