South Africa: Chemicals (% of value added in manufacturing)

Key figures

What the numbers say

In 2019, South Africa's chemicals (% of value added in manufacturing) fell 0 percentage points on 2018 (from 7% to 7%).

Across the 30 yearly changes before that (1989 to 2018), the average change was −0.14 percentage points and a typical year strayed about 1.16 percentage points from that (the standard deviation). This year's change was 0.1 standard deviations above that average, so it was an ordinary year: it sits within the range of normal year-to-year movement.

On record, the biggest yearly rise was 1.96 percentage points in 1991 and the biggest yearly fall was 5.36 percentage points in 1999. The numbers show how large and when, not why; for the cause, look at what happened in that country in those years.

From 2010 to 2019 there is no clear straight-line trend: a straight line explains 27% of the movement over 10 observed years, so the value is moving around more than it is heading anywhere.

Worked out from the yearly values above. How the checks work: standard deviation, z-scores and straight-line trends.

Closest to South Africa in the 2019 ranking

• China — 1st of 3: 10.81%
• Bolivia — 2nd of 3: 9.42%

What this measures

Manufacturing of chemicals and chemical products includes industries classified in ISIC (Rev. 3) division 24. Value added is the contribution to the economy by a producer or an industry or an institutional sector, which is estimated by the total value of output produced and deducting the total value of intermediate consumption of goods and services used to produce that output. This indicator is expressed as a percentage of value added in manufacturing which is the contribution to the economy by the manufacturing sector (ISIC Rev. 3 major division D).

Limitations: In establishing classifications systems compilers must define both the types of activities to be described and the units whose activities are to be reported. There are many possibilities, and the choices affect how the statistics can be interpreted and how useful they are in analyzing economic behavior. The ISIC emphasizes commonalities in the production process and is explicitly not intended to measure outputs (for which there is a newly developed Central Product Classification). Nevertheless, the ISIC views an activity as defined by "a process resulting in a homogeneous set of products."

All 57 values

Chemicals (% of value added in manufacturing) in nearby economies

• Botswana — 10.11% (2023)
• Burundi — 2.79% (2015)
• Cameroon — 3.6% (2018)
• Congo, Dem. Rep. — 20.67% (2022)
• Côte d'Ivoire — 5.46% (2022)
• Ethiopia — 10.62% (2015)
• Ghana — 6.32% (2015)
• Kenya — 9.94% (2023)
• Malawi — 3.13% (2021)
• Namibia — 5% (2023)

More economic policy & debt data for South Africa

• Trade in services (% of GDP) — 9.32% (2025)
• Communications, computer, etc. (% of service imports, BoP) — 44.9% (2025)
• Primary income payments (BoP, current US$) — US$20.32 billion (2025)
• Imports of goods and services (current US$, BoP) — US$126.24 billion (2025)
• Insurance and financial services (% of service imports, BoP) — 5.58% (2025)
• Goods imports (current US$, BoP) — US$104.47 billion (2025)
• Service imports (current US$, BoP) — US$21.77 billion (2025)
• Charges for the use of intellectual property, payments (BoP, current US$) — US$1.74 billion (2025)
• Imports of goods, services and primary income (current US$, BoP)

Reading data like this

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Questions people ask

What is South Africa's chemicals (% of value added in manufacturing)?

7% in 2019, according to the World Bank (World Development Indicators).

How has it changed since 1963?

It is down 2.26 percentage points from 9.26% in 1963. The highest value was 14.22% in 1985 and the lowest 6.21% in 1999.

Is the latest change in chemicals (% of value added in manufacturing) unusual for South Africa?

In 2019, South Africa's chemicals (% of value added in manufacturing) fell 0 percentage points on 2018 (from 7% to 7%). Across the 30 yearly changes before that (1989 to 2018), the average change was −0.14 percentage points and a typical year strayed about 1.16 percentage points from that (the standard deviation). This year's change was 0.1 standard deviations above that average, so it was an ordinary year: it sits within the range of normal year-to-year movement.

Where does this data come from?

The World Bank's World Development Indicators, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: International Yearbook of Industrial Statistics, UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

Source

World Bank, World Development Indicators, indicator NV.MNF.CHEM.ZS.UN, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: International Yearbook of Industrial Statistics, UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Figures are fetched from the World Bank API and refreshed monthly; see the series on data.worldbank.org. The full definition and method are in the World Bank's metadata glossary. Comparisons use the same World Bank release.

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