South Africa Posts Record Trade Deficits Due to Strikes

“South Africa posted a record trade deficit in October as mining strikes cut output and machinery and chemical imports surged.

The shortfall widened to 21.2 billion rand ($2.4 billion) from 13.8 billion rand in September, the Pretoria-based South African Revenue Service said today in an e-mailed statement. Themedian estimate of seven economists in a Bloomberg survey was 15.5 billion rand.

South Africa’s trade gap of 104.6 billion rand in the first 10 months of this year is more than 10-times bigger than a year ago as a series of strikes since August shut mines owned by companies including Lonmin Plc (LMI) and Anglo American Platinum Ltd. (AMS) The labor turmoil will reduce this year’s economic growth rate by 0.5 percentage point and lower exports by more than 12.5 billion rand, according to the National Treasury.”

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