Stefanus Nashama
The Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) has recorded the economic expansion of N$6.8 billion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the third quarter of 2023.
NSA Statistician-General, Alex Shimuafeni, announced this yesterday and said the size of the Namibian economy, as quantified by the GDP at current prices, reached N$59.7 billion during the quarter under scrutiny.
This, he said indicates an increase from the N$52.9 billion recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2022, which then consequently has experienced the expansion in the GDP size amounting to an increment of N$6.8 billion.
In percentage, the GDP of the third quarter of 2023 has had a substantial growth of 7.2 percent. This represents a substantial increase from the 5.4 percent recorded during the preceding year’s corresponding quarter.
“The economy witnessed a commendable trend, characterised by ten consecutive quarters of positive growth,” he announced.
Shimuafeni added that this growth was spearheaded by the Mining and quarrying sector, which demonstrated an impressive 51.7 percent increase in the Agriculture and forestry sector, which exhibited a commendable 19.9 percent expansion.
“The commendable performance in the third quarter of 2023 was primarily propelled by the primary industries, which experienced a substantial expansion of 38.3 percent,” he stressed.
He acknowledged that this economic size expansion shows positive developments that can be attributed to enhanced oil and gas exploration activities, coupled with increased momentum in livestock marketing.
At the same time, Shimuafeni informed the public that tertiary industries demonstrated a growth of 2.2 percent during the quarter under review.
According to him, these contributions came from key sectors such as wholesale and retail, transport, hotels and restaurants and financial services.
“These sectors exhibited robust expansions in real value-added, with growth rates of 6.1 percent, 8.8 percent, 6.4 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively,” he said.
Despite the positive contributions, Shimuafeni pointed out that secondary industries encountered challenges during the third quarter of this year.
Adding that this is due to both Manufacturing and Construction that have experienced contractions of 8.7 percent and 30.6 percent, respectively.
He added that the downturn in the manufacturing sector can be attributed to declines in specific subsectors like Basic non-furious metal which recorded a decline of -74.4 percent, diamond processing 29.8 percent and beverages 24.9 percent.
Concerning expenditure on GDP, Shimuafeni said that the balance of goods and services revealed a negative net export of N$14.4 billion.
This indicates that export activities displayed a commendable growth of 7.4 percent, whereas imports expanded by 11.2 percent during the same period.
