The International Monetary Fund (IMF), says Sub-Saharan Africa has bright prospects for growth in spite of persistent slowdown in growth owing to the slump in commodity prices and a more difficult global environment.
While there have been quite significant slowdown in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in resource-intensive countries, including Ghana, non-resource-intensive countries like Kenya, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire have been able to maintain growth.
Ms Natalia Koliadina, IMF Resident Representative for Ghana, who briefed members of the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists on the IMF’s April 2016 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, said there is the need for countries in the region to diversify their economies to minimise shocks from slumps in commodity prices.
This, she noted, would require policy as well as structural reforms, building of infrastructure and skills upgrade for its workforce.
She added that it is also important for countries to insulate themselves against the effects of commodity price slumps by building up buffers when the prices are high.
The report noted that while dependency on natural resources had in the past supported the growth of these countries, it had also made them vulnerable to declines in commodity prices, with strong macroeconomic downturns and the most vulnerable are the region’s oil exporters.
The report also encouraged boosting the private sector business activity in the region to drive its economies by putting in place enabling policies for businesses, especially small businesses and building the requisite infrastructure and environment for businesses to thrive.
The report expressed the need for a major policy reset by authorities in the region to address the risks to the outlook although it recognises that policies in the region had improved quite significantly in the last decade.
The IMF has also expressed its readiness to engage more with the media in Ghana in order to engender increased understanding of the Fund’s work in member-states and its role in programme implementation.
Ms Koliadina said the building of trust and confidence are essential aspects of its work.
Source: GNA
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no wonder lucky dub said,when you see a white man you have seen your oppressor.
The IMF ; the World and most of the lending financial organisations including JP Morgan ; Goldman Sach; Barclays Bank ; Deutse Bank are all a mafia syndicate with their sole objective to paint this nice mirage of development progress which never happens because they will never tell you the TRUTH of how to develop and gain sustainability but rather prefer you to come and borrow ; they are always practicing what we call 'LEAP FROGING' development economics in which they always paint this picture that the future is bright when they know it to be FALSE ; this report by the IMF representative is a FRAUD !!!!!!!!!; why because the report did not mention the true way to up lift your economy as a third world economy should do ; they only talk about infracsture building ; this is false because this kind of infrascture initiative needs huge debt to finance these development ; that means you need to go to these organisations to borrow ; this becomes a huge unsustainable debt around our necks and so for months and years the interest on the repayments goes to service their countries in other words they live of us through the payment of interest lent for these projects ; what they do not tell us is that with these development inititive there is the cost of maintenance over the years which we need to generate from our own resources ; the assumption is that by the time these assets become non operational there will ather borrowing resourcesto finance the maintenance ; if we cannot then these projects go to waste and must be built again ; this is vicious cirle of develomentb ; that they do not tell yyou ; what they do not tell you is that China did not develop rapidly through building of infrascture ; they built huge factories and offered employment to theor people to manufacture goods and services which was sold the West ; China studied the consumption patterns and habits of the West and realised that their weakness was 'LOW CHEAP PRICES'; their factories churned out cheap good which they EXPORTED on massive scale toi the WESt besides Japan did the same ; China accumulated huge surplus and started to build their infrascture from the huge dollar earnings and started buyionmg ***barred word*** in Europe and US; today China has its currency as a reserve ciurrency like the dollar and has huge reserves with the US and Europe ; this report development process by the IMF is a complete FRAUD !!!!!!!!
You said this 10 years ago. You said this 20y ago. You said this since independence 70 years ago. Next year, IMF will still say this.