By:Iol

South Africa’s mining output exhibited a modest growth of 0.3% year-on-year in August, revealing a complex narrative for the industry that is pivotal to the country’s economy.

Despite this increment, economists and sector analysts have remained cautious about the sustainability of this growth, with implications indicating the mining sector will continue to impede gross domestic growth (GDP) expansion for the third quarter of the year.

According to data released by Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) yesterday, key contributors to the mining print in August included manganese ore, which saw a striking increase of 16% while platinum group metals (PGM) production increased by 4.7%.

The robust performance of manganese and PGMs has provided a temporary uplift to the sector.

However, the positivity is somewhat overshadowed by significant downturns in iron ore and gold productivity.