Retail sales of hardware, paint and glass fell by 6 percent y-y in January 2022 to R7.4bn (current prices), compared to a 12 percent increase in overall retail trade sales (Source Statistics South Africa)
Actual capital expenditure by metropolitan areas on infrastructure related items, such as housing, roads, water and energy fell by 5 percent y-y in September 2021, despite an 11 percent increase in budgetary allocations for the 2021/22 period to R24.8bn. Metro’s managed to spend only 75 percent of their “construction related capital expenditure budgets” in the…
Performance in 2021 Today, Stats SA released the private sector building statistics for December, which now gives us a full view of activity levels and approvals in 2021, and it isn’t pretty. The data shows that the private building market was still operating at an extremely low level in 2021, compared to pre-pandemic ‘normal’ levels…
President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his state of the nation address on Thursday 10 February. With a focus on infrastructure development, we are looking for guidance as to where the country is heading in terms of infrastructure rollout programmes promised over the years. As expected Ramaphosa again reiterated the importance of infrastructure being central to the…
According to Stats SA, the annual increase in the price index for construction materials slowed to 14.5 percent in December 2021, from 15.5 percent the previous month. This brings the average increase in construction materials for 2021 to 13.4 percent, compared to -0.7 percent in 2020 and 5.1 percent in 2019. This is the strongest…
There remains a significant divergence between the housing and commercial private building industries, according to Stats SA who released the building statistics today. The commercial building industry remains in dire straits, largely due to a huge slump in demand for office space, as well as very weak demand for retail buildings. While the residential building…
Stats SA today reported a good improvement in residential building activity in terms of the number of SQM of building plans reported as completed in the month. While there has been permanent damage done to the non-residential industry, the housing market has been a lot more robust. In a month where there was a 7.5…
Stats SA released another set of extremely poor GDP figures for the 3rd quarter of the year, as the economy struggles to recover off the record lows of 2020, failing to get back anywhere near to 2019 pre-Covid levels. The economy contracted by 1.5 percent in the 3rd quarter relative to the 2nd quarter, with…
Stats SA today reported just under 700 000 SQM of private buildings completed in September, which is a 7.4 percent improvement compared to the previous month, when 650 000 SQM were reportedly completed. Compared to the same month last year, activity levels in this segment is up by just under 24 percent, coming off a…
Stats SA announced today that the economy grew just 1.2 percent in the 2nd quarter of the year, compared to the previous quarter, as the economy struggles to reach anywhere near pre-pandemic levels. While the newly benchmarked figures were slightly better than expected (compared to a Bloomberg poll, the consensus was around 0.9 percent), the…
Private sector building approvals weakened during May 2026, with…
What is the Provincial Construction Pipeline? The Provincial Construction…
