African growth prospects reduced to 1.6%

ECONOMIC growth in subSaharan Africa is likely to slip to 1.6 percent this year, its lowest level in two decades, due to continuing woes in the continent’s largest economies South Africa and Nigeria, a World Bank report said yesterday. Africa has been one of the world’s fastest growing regions over the past decade, but a commodities slump has hit its oil and mineral exporters hard, bringing growth down to 3 percent in 2015. However, other countries, including Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Tanzania, have continued to record gross domestic product growth above 6 percent, according to Africa’s Pulse, the Bank’s twice-yearly analysis of economic trends. The report, which was unveiled in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan, also singled out Ivory Coast and Senegal as top performers. “Our analysis shows that the more resilient growth performers tend to have stronger macroeconomic policy frameworks, better business regulatory environment, more diverse structure of exports, and more effective institutions,” said Albert Zeufack, World Bank chief economist for Africa.