Economy

LUANDA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Angola’s economic growth is forecast to accelerate to 2.9% this year from an estimated 0.1% in 2021, boosted by higher oil prices and a relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions, the International Monetary Fund said. “Angola’s economic performance is beginning to improve after years of recession,” the Washington-based lender said in a statement published on its website that includes a final staff report on Angola’s three-year extended arrangement. “Vulnerability remains high,…

Global central banks are set to spend 2022 diverging, as some take on the menace of inflation and others stay focused on boosting economic growth. The pandemic remains a risk to demand the world over, but after triggering a recession in 2020, its subsequent igniting of price pressures has also posed a challenge for monetary policy makers. They enter a new year having to tread carefully. Acting quickly to control prices could end up quashing expansions, especially…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Economists have struggled to see ahead in the pandemic. They’re upbeat about next year, but could easily get blindsided again. The Covid years are littered with predictions that didn’t work out. For anyone looking ahead into 2022, that should be enough to give pause.Most forecasters, including Bloomberg Economics, have as their base case a robust recovery with cooling prices and a shift away from emergency monetary-policy settings. What could…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana faces the challenge of presenting a clear strategy to revive South Africa’s torpid economy and return public finances to a sustainable path when he presents his first mid-term budget on Thursday. Key metrics in the spending plan for the next three years will benefit from windfall mining revenue and upward revisions to gross domestic product, with the budget deficit likely to narrow faster than previously expected. Still, the country…

ADDIS ABABA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Moody’s Investors Service cut Ethiopia’s sovereign credit rating for a second time since May, citing a delay in the nation’s planned debt restructuring and an escalating civil war. The company lowered the rating one level to Caa2, it said in a statement on Wednesday. Moody’s in March placed the country on review for downgrade, before cutting the rating two months later. The outlook is negative.A creditor committee to discuss Ethiopia’s…

TUNIS (Capital Martkets in Africa) – Tunisia is in “very advanced discussions” with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for sorely needed financial aid and talks with the IMF are ongoing, a central bank official said, as the nation’s political crisis weighs on already dire economic ills. An agreement with the two Gulf states may be reached soon, the head of financing and foreign transactions at the Tunisian regulator, Abdelkarim Lassoued, said Saturday in…