South Africa’s economy expanded at the fastest pace in three years in 2025, helped by stronger output in the agriculture, trade and finance industries.
Gross domestic product expanded 1.1%, compared with 0.5% in the prior year, Statistics South Africa said in a report released in the capital, Pretoria, on Tuesday. That was the fastest pace since 2022, when the economy grew 2.1%.
South Africa’s economy has underperformed for more than a decade, expanding by an average of less than 1% annually, because of electricity shortages and logistics snarl-ups that have curbed mining and manufacturing production and deterred investment.
An increasing pace of reforms has boosted sentiment and raised expectations that the growth rate will pick up in coming years, with the National Treasury forecasting it will rise to 2% by 2028 from 1.6% projected for this year.
Seven of 10 sectors contributed to growth last year, with farm output growing 17.4%, trade, catering and accommodation expanding 2.3%, finance 1.9% and transport 0.8%.
The outcome for 2025 was helped by improved growth in the fourth quarter. The economy expanded 0.4% in the three months through December, compared with a revised 0.3% increase in the prior quarter.
The fourth-quarter figure was higher than the 0.3% median estimate of 11 economists in a Bloomberg survey.
Growth in the quarter was largely led by the finance and trade sectors, which expanded 1.4% and 0.9% respectively, the data showed.
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