South Africa's economy grew by a lesser 0.8% last year after expanding 1.4% in 2017, the national statistics agency said on Tuesday.
Growth in gross domestic product also slowed to 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2018 from 2.6% in the third, dragged down by the mining, trade and general government services industries, Statistics South Africa said.
The largest positive contributors to GDP in Q4 were the transport, manufacturing and finance industries.
Transport, storage and communication increased by 7.7% and contributed 0.7 percentage points to GDP. Manufacturing rose 4.5% and added 0.6 percentage points while finance, real estate and business services climbed 2.7%, contributing 0.5 percentage points.
Negative contributions came from mining and quarrying, which contracted 3.8%, as well as trade and general government services.
The annual real GDP growth of 0.8% last year was driven by increased economic activity in the finance, real estate and business services, which contributed 0.4 percentage points, while general government services added 0.2 percentage points.
Manufacturing; trade, catering and accommodation; transport, storage and communication; and personal services each accounted for 0.1 percentage points.
Three industries shrank in 2018, namely agriculture, forestry and fishing which fell 4.8%, mining and quarrying which was down 1.7% and construction which decreased by 1.2%.