(Ecofin Agency) - South Africa’s national statistics office, Stats SA, revealed that mining output in the country has slumped by 4.4% in May 2016 compared to the same period in 2015.

In May 2016, the main drawback was iron ore production (like in April where it dropped by 6.9%). South Africa’s iron output has indeed slumped 26.4%, which represents -4.9 percentage points of global decrease. Also, manganese output fell by 25.4%, or -1.8 percentage points.

However, out of this dark picture, the brimming light came from the Platinum Group Metals (PGM) sector where output surged by 23.1% compared to May 2015, which represents a positive contribution of 3.9 percentage points.

Stats SA also highlighted a 3.5% decrease in ore sales in April 2016 compared to April the year before. Here, the greatest negative came from PGM for which sales plunged 30.9% or -8.9 percentage points. On the contrary, gold’s sales soared 21.9%, or 2 percentage points.

Let’s recall that the current mining crisis that South Africa records plummeted its Gross Domestic Product by 1.2% in Q1 2016.

Louis-Nino Kansoun