The severity of load-shedding affected manufacturing production more than any other factor last month‚ the newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Manufacturing activity plunged to a four-year low‚ a key index showed on Monday.

“Manufacturers would have been impacted severely by electricity outages‚ particularly by the number of stage 3 outages‚” Manufacturing Circle executive director Coenraad Bezuidenhout told the paper.

Heavy industries are required to stop production equipment during stage 3 load-shedding‚ which Mr Bezuidenhout said was “expensive to run and for which optimal operating conditions are impossible to reach under stop-start conditions“.

The Kagiso purchasing managers’ index — which gauges activity in manufacturing — suggested that production in the sector began the second quarter on a slow footing‚ which would slow economic growth.