South Africa recorded the highest monthly trade surplus in 19 year in May, higher than what analysts expected, as a weaker rand helped improve earnings from the country’s exports, while imports slowed.

Official data indicated that Africa’s most industrialized nation had a trade surplus of 18.7 billion rand ($1.27 billion) during the month, higher than the revised 127 million deficit in April, and four times more than the same months a year ago, BDlive reported.

A Reuters poll showed that analysts expected a median surplus of about 3.1 billion rand, while a Bloomberg poll of 10 economist forecast a 4.1 billion rand surplus.

While exports from the country rose 14 percent to 104.7 billion month-on-month, imports dipped 6.6 percent to 86 billion rand, the South African Revenue Service said.

Revision of the country’s trade balance in April, from a 431 million rand surplus to a 127 million rand shortfall, also helped the surplus to balloon in May.

Consumer purchasing power and investment in South Africa has been depressed in recent month as the country struggled with economic and political challenges.

This has contributed to a slowdown in import growth, Kamilla Kaplan, an economist at Investec told BDlive.

On the other hand, prices of metals and precious stones like gold, diamonds and platinum exported by South Africa has been improving since they hit a bottom in January. Their prices had been hurt by a global commodity rout that started on late 2014.

For the first five month of this year the country exported goods worth 451.6 billion, 10.2 percent more than the same period last year. Imports only grew by 3.4 percent in the same period.

This recovery in exports benefited further from the rand’s 21 percent depreciation against the dollar over the last 18 months and is likely to help seal a five percent current account deficit reported in the first quarter of this year, Bloomberg reported.

“With the external deficits compressing, it will over time support a more balanced economy and one that provides a better backdrop against which the rand is traded,” ETM Analytics economist Manisha Morar told Bloomberg.