South Africa's economy has moved out of recession, recording slight positive growth for the third quarter of 2009, Statistics SA said on Tuesday.

The seasonally adjusted real gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices for the third quarter of 2009 increased by an annualised rate of 0.9 percent compared with the second quarter of 2009, the Pretoria based agency said.

This followed decreases of real annualised economic growth rates of 7.4 percent and 2.8 percent in the first and second quarters of 2009 compared with the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 respectively.