Gross Domestic Product has unexpectedly contracted by 0.6% in the third quarter.
On Tuesday, Stats SA said this followed a revised 3.2% expansion in the second quarter.
Some of the contributors were agriculture, which contracted by 3.6%, mining by over 6% and manufacturing, which decreased by almost 4%.
Year-on -year, Stats SA said GDP grew by 0.1% in the third quarter, also below economists’ forecasts for growth of 0.4%.