Building plans passed May 2017 | National summary

Although the May release of the building plans data from Stats SA marked the sixth consecutive month of decline, the rate of decline slowed to 1.8 percent y-y, from a decline of 33 percent y-y in April.  The contraction  in May is better than expected, and now joins other economic indicators that surprised on the upside over the last few weeks, such as slightly stronger manufacturing data as well as retail trade data, which saw an expansion in May of 1.4 percent y-y. Provincially it was a bit of a mixed bag with an increase reported in SQM approved in 4 of the 9 provinces. The Western Cape was however the only higher capacity province to experience some sort of growth in private building in the month. The residential market reported a marginal increase during May, while the non-residential market continued to decline, reporting the 6th consecutive month of contraction. Over the last 12 months, the rate of decline eased somewhat to -6.7 percent y-y, from -8.7 percent the previous month. Current activity is also starting to contract in terms of completions, which fell by 17.6 percent y-y in the month, and over the last 12 months, SQM completed contracted by 1.8 percent, and this is the first month