By: Nghiinomenwa-vali Hangala
The Namibian economy has recorded the second-fastest quarterly growth since the first quarter of 2024.
According to the latest quarterly (2nd Quarter) total production of the country has expanded by 4.8%, a nominal expansion of N$5.3 billion, revealed by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA).
Wholesale and Retail trade, ‘Agriculture and Forestry’, and Health sectors were the top contributors to the 4.8% GDP growth, each contributing 0.9 percentage points, 0.8 percentage points, and 0.7 percentage points.
Education, Financial services, Manufacturing, and ‘Public administration and defence’ sectors each contributed 0.4 percentage points.
In terms of sectoral output, the agriculture and Forestry sector recorded the highest growth rate in real value added of 17.8% during the review period, followed by Health (17.6%), ‘Wholesale and retail trade’ (9.0%).
According to NSA, the agricultural sector performance was largely driven by the crop subsector, which recorded a growth of 28.5% during the period under review.
However, the growth cannot beat 37.3% growth witnessed in the same quarter of the previous year.
The performance in the crop subsector emanates from an increase in production of maize and millet, which is owed to favorable rainfall during the reference period.
During the second quarter of 2026, production of controlled agronomy (White maize, Pearl Millet and Wheat) stood at 52,515 tonnes, compared to 35, 765 tonnes recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2025.
In addition, the livestock subsector recorded an increase of 7.2% in real value added compared to a decline of 28.4% registered in the corresponding quarter of 2025.
Cattle marketed to export abattoirs increased by 4.7%, compared to a 40.2% decline in the same quarter of 2025.
Similarly, live cattle exports increased by 62.0%, from a 74.5% decline in the second quarter of 2025.
Furthermore, the number of small stocks exported live declined by 11.2%, compared to a contraction of 4.2% recorded in the second quarter of 2025.
However, the number of small stocks marketed to export abattoirs and butchers increased by 20.4%, compared to a 38.3% contraction in the same quarter of the previous year, NSA found.
As for other sectors such as the ‘Information and communication sector ‘, it grew by 8.2%, Financial services activities (5.5%), ‘Hotels and restaurant’ (5.5%) and ‘Real estate and Professional services activities’ (5.2%).
Construction, ‘Mining and quarrying’ and ‘Electricity and water’ sectors witnessed declines in real value added of 15.5%, 3.1% and 2.6%, correspondingly, during the quarter under review.
NSA explained that the poor performance of the sector is primarily ascribed to the subsectors of uranium mining, diamond mining and metal ores.
