Speaking on Monday at a press conference, the central bank’s Waldemar de Souza said that “our projections for this year are for growth in Gross Domestic Product of about seven per cent, falling short of the almost eight per cent envisaged in the Economic and Social Plan (PES)”.
If growth does drop to seven per cent it will be below last year’s rate of 7.4 per cent.
According to the central bank, the flooding at the beginning of the year has also affected other macro-economic indicators including the inflation target. This has been worsened by increased prices for tuition fees and educational materials, along with international price rises for imported rice, wheat and cooking oil.
De Souza lamented that the bank’s reserves were cut from 2.6 billion US dollars at the end of 2012 to 2.2 billion dollars now. He said that this was partly due to the late disbursement of foreign aid promised by donors, explaining “out of 193 million dollars due to be disbursed in the first three months of the year, only 45 million dollars has been received”.
There was also positive news from the bank official. He revealed that foreign direct investment rose to 5.2 billion dollars, up from 2.3 billion dollars. 78 per cent of this investment was in iron, coal and gas.
De Souza added that there are predictions of a sharp recovery in the global economy as a result of a greater contribution from the US economy as well as economic growth in emerging markets, particularly in countries in sub Saharan Africa.
Post published in: Africa News