PRETORIA, June 6 (Reuters) - South Africa slipped into technical recession for the first time since 2009 after the economy contracted in the first quarter, led by weak manufacturing and trade sectors, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday.
Africa's most developed economy contracted by 0.7 percent in the first quarter after shrinking by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, the statistics agency said.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected a quarter-on-quarter GDP expansion of 0.9 percent.
Gross domestic product rose 1.0 percent on an unadjusted year-on-year basis in the first quarter, compared with 0.7 percent contraction in the previous three months, the agency said.
(Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Writing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Joe Brock)
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