Stats SA executive manager of short-term indicators, Michael Manamela, said Stats SA had always reported the annualised GDP as the headline number.

"This practice is the case for South Africa and a few countries such as the USA and Canada. Although the seasonally adjusted annualised rate is referenced as the headline, Stats SA has always provided estimates for the year-on-year estimates as well as data to derive the not annualised quarter-on-quarter estimates," said Manamela.

On Tuesday, this was the case, with Stats SA giving three figures in its presentation - the annual rate (-17.1%); the quarter-on-quarter not annualised rate (-16.4) and the quarter-on-quarter annualised rate (-51%).

"Historically, South Africa has used the seasonally adjusted annualised quarterly GDP as the headline number. Globally there is no one standard, but many countries' headline number is either the year-on-year or the seasonably adjusted quarter-on-quarter not annualised," Manamela said.

Is this a problem only in South Africa?

This was not a conversation only taking place in South Africa.

Economic analyst at Tutwa Consulting, Heinrich Krogman, said the same discussion happened in the US recently when they announced their GDP figures.

The New York Times reported that second quarter GDP figures in the US could be looked at in different ways - either as a 35% annualised drop or a 10% quarter-to-quarter non-annualised drop.

The newspaper chose to lead with the non-annualised number, noting that when annual rates were applied to short-term changes, they could be "misleading".

But the annualised GDP figures were useful for comparisons, noted Krogman.

"Reporting data (or GDP figures for that matter) in this format helps in making a quick comparison regardless of the time period," said Krogman.

What impact does it have?

Investment strategist at Old Mutual Multi-Managers, Izak Odendaal, said while the manner in which the data was presented did a lot for how it was perceived, the GDP contraction announced on Tuesday, should not be lost on South Africans.

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On the other hand, Odendaal said, the modern world was experiencing economic realities the likes of which had not been seen before and this had to be considered when considering GDP data and how it was presented.

"Normally annualising isn't an issue but this wasn't a normal quarter. Neither is wrong, as long as people understand what the numbers mean. We've always published the annualised number in SA, but some countries don't. As long as you compare countries on the same basis," Odendaal said.