The South African economy still has not fully recovered from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic lockdowns. Most official monthly indicators of economic activity have not grown sustainably in volume terms since the pandemic. Among the industry indicators on the first chart, only the volume of retail sales has increased over the last 5 years. If one looks at the inflation-adjusted value of industry income instead, only mining and manufacturing income are above their pre-pandemic levels for the latest available month compared to the same pre-pandemic month. Comparing industry volumes and income to February 2020 does not change this assessment overall.
Footnotes
Here are the figures again using the month before the economic lockdowns instead:
