By Almot Maqolo.
Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to record a rebound in growth of 2.5 percent in 2017 which will be barely sufficient enough to deliver any per capita income gains.
Last year was a difficult year for many countries with economic growth estimate only reached about one and a half percent, which was the “weakest” outcome in more than 20 years and well below the rate of population growth.
IMF said while a number of countries continued to grow robustly the slowdown in growth has been fairly broad based, affecting about two-thirds of the countries in the region and that accounts for about four-fifths of regional Growth Domestic Product.
However, this of course contrasts with the very robust growth rates the region was experiencing in recent years.
The Breton Woods Institution said they have also noticed that inflation has begun to “accelerate” in some countries, reflecting the widening of macroeconomic imbalances, some currency depreciation and in a few cases, drought related food price increases.
“Looking ahead we see a rebound in growth, but only a modest one, so around two and a half percent in 2017,” IMF Director of the African Department Abebe Selassie said recently during a press briefing in United States of America (Washington DC) about the macroeconomic situation in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“The uptick in growth is largely driven by one-off factors in the three largest economies— a recovery in oil production in Nigeria, higher public spending ahead of elections in Angola, and the fading of drought effects in South Africa.”
Selassie noted that this will fall short of the recent trends.
He said Sub-Saharan Africa is a very diverse region and this aggregate number hides the fact that there are quite a few countries that continue to grow fairly robustly at 5 percent, even up to 7 percent, particularly in West Africa and also some countries in East Africa.
“That said, going forward the outlook is subject to considerable downside risks from the external side,” he added.
Recently, the group reviewed upwards its economic projection for Zimbabwe to 2 percent prior to its earlier forecast of minus 2.5 percent made late last year.
The country also revised its growth forecast to 3.7 percent last month from the initial growth projection of 1.7 percent citing an anticipated bumper harvest owing to a good rainy and farming season.
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