South Africa’s economy escaped recession in the first quarter and is once again bigger than before the coronavirus pandemic hit, as most sectors grew. Gross domestic product expanded 0.4% in the three months through March, after contracting a revised 1.1% in the previous quarter, Statistics South Africa said in a report released in the capital, Pretoria, on Tuesday. That matched the central bank forecast and the median estimate of 16 economists in a Bloomberg survey. The economy grew 0.2% from a year earlier. At an annualized 4.61 trillion rand ($240 billion) in the first quarter, GDP is bigger than the last quarter ... (full story)