The International Monitory Fund (IMF) predicts that the economic growth for Ethiopia in 2020 is 1.9 per cent while its growth in 2021 will be at zero.
This is from IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook of Sub Saharan Africa under the title, ‘A Difficult Road to Recovery.’ The report shows how African countries’ economies have been hit severely by the covid-19 pandemic.
According to the report, the economic growth of African countries in 2020 has significantly dropped due to the pandemic and estimates a worse forecast than the ones in its April reports.
The report further states that this year very few countries have had positive improvements in terms of growth while the rest are below zero and the majority are in negative performance.
According to the report, in the Ethiopia budget for the year that ended on July 7, 2020, the county’s economic growth has shown a massive drop in comparison to the preceding year’s forecast by IMF.
While the IMF forecast the county’s growth to be at 1.9 per cent, the Ethiopian government stated that the growth for 2020 is at 6.1 per cent.
Also read: Ethiopia’s economy grew 6.1% in the 2019/20 FY: PM
According to IMF’s regional economic outlook published in October 2019 before the pandemic forecasted that Ethiopia’s real GDP will stand at 7.2 per cent in 2020.
In its April report, IMF had suggested that the biggest economic growth was to be registered by South Sudan, Benin, Uganda and Rwanda.
According to IMF latest report, South Sudan’s real GDP growth is at the top standing at 4.1 per cent followed by Benin and Rwanda with 2 per cent growth each.
The other biggest growth registered in the period is the performance of Tanzania with 1.9 per cent and Cote d’Ivoire with 1.8 per cent.
Tourist-based economies like Mauritius and Seychelles have been seriously affected by the pandemic with their economic growth dropping by negative to -14.2 and -13.8 percentages respectively.
IMF in its report said that the late arrival of the pandemic in Ethiopia has spread the shock into the third quarter of 2020 and that the rural and subsistence-based agricultural sector has been relatively isolated whilst the tourism and hospitality services have been hit very hard.
“The recovery is expected to start gradually in the fourth quarter of 2020, with growth returning to pre-crisis rates by 2022,” it added.
Original article on The Exchange