Nigeria, South Africa and Angola have topped the International Monetary Funds (IMF) list of 24 countries expected to have hampered growth of less that 5% in 2019 financial year.
Surprisingly Benin, Ghana, Ethiopia and Senegal and 19 others countries are expected to grow at 5% rate or more this same period under review.
IMF Director of African Department Mr Abebe Selassie, who spoke at a press conference, on Friday said in 2019, “we are expecting growth to accelerate to 3.5% from 3% in the preceding year” stressing however that “this average numbers makes quite a lot of difference in terms of outcomes across the region”.
He stated that the 21 countries where growths are expected to exceed 5% are “more diversified economies” and urged the resources dependent economies such as Nigeria to open up and explore more areas of investments especially those that focus on infrastructure developments.
“Still, there are in other set of countries, around 24, mainly resources-dependent economies that are facing sluggish growth in the near term and are seeing slower improvements in standards of livings. This group includes some of the larger economies in the region, the likes of Angola, Nigeria and South Africa, which account for more than 50 percent of the region’s output”.
Selassie however adviced countries within the region to put in place measures that can sustain the expected growth and shore up their revenue bases.
The IMF director said “looking ahead, we see basically two broad implications for policies, first in the fast growing economies, the likes of Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, there is a need to hand over the rein of growth from the public to the private sector,” while for the slow growing economies more diversification is needed to spur on the economies.
