The World Bank on Wednesday cut its economic growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa for 2019 to 2021 by 0.2 percentage points from its earlier projection, citing a slowdown in fixed investment and policy uncertainty in the global economy.
Those tensions, plus softening global growth and falling commodity prices, compounded by the slow pace of reforms in African countries, “are weighing on activity across the region”, the bank said. Nigeria’s economy is expected to grow 2.0 per cent this year, compared with the previous forecast of 2.1 per cent in April and to expand 2.1 per cent in 2020 and 2021.“The medium-term growth outlook continues to be constrained by a weak macroeconomic policy environment and slow policy implementation,” the bank said.
It said it made the cuts in its forecasts for South Africa due to the sharp slowdown in GDP growth in the first quarter of this year, low investor sentiment, and persistent policy uncertainty.The bank said Angola’s economy will grow 0.7 per cent this year, from a World Bank projection of 1.0 per cent in April.