A recession is usually said to occur if a country experiences two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.
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By 1530 GMT the rand had gained 0.6 percent to 13.9975 per dollar, the greenback slipping as reports that Turkish fighter jets had shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border saw investors seeking out safe haven bets.
South Africa just escaped being in a recession in 2015, with the third quarter growth of 0.7%, Statistics SA announced on Tuesday.
The performance of these sectors managed to push economic growth into positive territory despite negative growth in the mining and quarrying industry and the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry.
Activity in the mining industry fell by 9.8 percent.
“Drought conditions and further pressure on commodities are likely to further damage growth rates in the primary sector (agriculture and mining) of the economy in upcoming quarters”, she said.
The agricultural sector has been particularly hard hit registering a contraction for three consecutive quarters and registering negative growth of 16.2% compared with the same period past year.
The other industries that experienced growth in the third quarter were finance (+2,8%), trade (+2,5%), personal services (+1,7%), government (+1,2%), construction (+0,5%), and transport (+0,1%).
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The consensus, however, was that quarter-on-quarter growth would come in at 1%, according to Investec economist Annabel Bishop. The Reserve Bank increased its benchmark repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent on November 19, the second increase this year.
