Emeka Okoroanyanwu
Nigerian economy has been projected to grow by 3.1 per cent next year from 2.9 per cent this year.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its new global economic growth forecast released on Tuesday also projected that sub-Sahara Africa’s economy will grow from 3.3 per cent in 2023 to 4 per cent in 2024.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s economic growth, it said, would shrink for a second year in a row in 2023 before rebounding in 2024.
According to the IMF, in it’s World Economic Outlook report released during the 2023 IMF/World Bank Annual General Meetings taking place in Marakesh, Morocco, growth in the African sub region is expected to fall to 3.3 per cent this year from 4 per cent last year, before rebounding to 4 per cent in 2024.
The forecast is slightly lower than what the IMF predicted in July, when it said Sub-Saharan Africa would grow 3.5 per cent in 2023 and 4.1 per cent next year.
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Said the IMF, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after COVID-19 had already dealt the global economy a heavy blow, sent food, fuel and fertiliser prices soaring in Africa last year. Weakening currencies, higher debt service costs and restricted access to capital markets added to debt pressures.”
The 2023 growth forecast for Angola was slashed from an April projection of 3.5 per cent to 1.3 pert cent, while Nigeria’s was trimmed from 3.2 per cent to 2.9 per cent. South Africa, was projected to grow just 0.9 per cent this year.
According to the IMF, Kenya’s growth will accelerate 5 per cent this year, up from 4.8 per cent in 2022, despite its government cutting budgets amid soaring debt costs. Tanzania and Senegal are also set to see higher growth this year.
Annual inflation across the region, which has seen violent protests against the cost of living in countries including Ghana and Kenya, is expected to be 16.2% at the end of this year.
That would be the same as 12 months earlier, the IMF said, before it falls to 10.5% at the end of next year.
The global economy continues to recover from the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis.
Said the IMF, “Despite war-disrupted energy and food markets and unprecedented monetary tightening to combat decades-high inflation, economic activity has slowed but not stalled.”
It said “Even so, growth remains slow and uneven, with widening divergences. The global economy is limping along, not sprinting.”
According to the IMF latest projections, world economic growth will slow from 3.5 percent in 2022 to 3 percent this year and 2.9 percent next year, a 0.1 percentage point downgrade for 2024 from July.
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Headline inflation continues to decelerate, from 9.2 percent in 2022 on a year-over-year basis, to 5.9 percent this year and 4.8 percent in 2024.
Core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, is also projected to decline, albeit more gradually, to 4.5 percent next year.
Most countries, the IMF said, are not likely to return inflation to target until 2025, as a result, projections are increasingly consistent with a soft landing scenario, bringing inflation down without a major downturn in activity, especially in the United States, where forecast predicted an increase in unemployment which is now modest, from 3.6 percent to 3.9 percent by 2025.