From Africa Recovery, Vol.13#4 (December 1999), Watch page

IMF
Strong GDP growth projected for Africa

During the first year of the new millennium, Africa's overall gross domestic product (GDP) should grow by around 5 per cent, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections. This will be significantly higher than the IMF's most recent estimates for 1999, when GDP grew by around 3.1 per cent. The improvement in 2000, argues the IMF's World Economic Outlook, can be partly attributed to "continued appropriate macroeconomic policies," but also to more favourable weather conditions, which boost farm output.

The overall result in 1999, the IMF also notes, masks wide differences among countries within Africa. Algeria and a number of smaller economies -- including Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mozambique, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda -- performed well, with GDP growing between 4 and 5.5 per cent. However, three of Africa's larger economies did rather poorly. Nigeria probably grew by only 0.5 per cent in 1999, largely because of low oil prices early in the year, followed by reduced oil output during the remainder of the year. South Africa's GDP increased by just 0.7 per cent, an improvement over the 0.5 per cent rate in 1998, and should improve further to 3.5 per cent in 2000. Morocco also grew slowly in 1999, by 0.6 per cent, mainly because of a drought-related decline in agricultural production.

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