Quantec Standardised Industry: The contribution to GDP by industry from 1994 to 2017

Update: The EasyData Industry Service has been updated to include data for 2018 since this post was published.

We have used data from our EasyData Industry Service to look at the relative contribution of industries to GDP in South Africa from 1994 to 2017.  There are 91 industries detailed within the EasyData Industry Service, but for now we have aggregated the data to 10 industries.

In 2017 the tertiary sector was the largest sector in the economy in terms of its contribution to GDP and contributed 68.9%. Within the tertiary sector the largest industries were the financial, insurance, real estate and business services industry (22.0% of national GDP), general government (16.6%) and wholesale and retail services industry (14.8%).

From 1994 to 2017, the contribution of the tertiary sector to GDP, increased from 59.5% to 68.9%, while the share of the secondary and primary sectors decreased over the same period; from 21.8% to 20.4% and from 18.7% to 10.8%, respectively. The large decline in the contribution of the primary sector was mainly due to the declining share of the mining industry which contracted from 15.4% in 1994 to 8.0% in 2017.

The data utilised in these graphs are downloaded from EasyData, for more information on the EasyData services available please visit www.easydata.co.za