South Africa isn’t getting out of the woods any time soon if the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) economic growth forecast is anything to go by.
The world body has lowered its projections for the country’s 2019 economic growth to just 1.2%, down from 1.4%.
The IMF also forecasts that the economy would grow by just 1.5% in 2020, down from 1.7%.
These figures are contained in the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook edition released on Tuesday, Fin24 reports.
They put South Africa among the worst economic performers in sub-Saharan Africa.
The projected recovery reflects modestly reduced but continued policy uncertainty in the South African economy after the May 2019 elections.
IMF
President Cyril Ramaphosa embarked on an ambitious investment drive in 2018 in a bid to revamp the country’s economy.
He has registered some progress, the latest being the planned $463m expansion of global mining company Rio Tinto’s investment in Richards Bay, KwaZulu-Natal.
Global carmaker Nissan is also set to expand its investments in South Africa, as did Mercedes-Benz last year. The economy also created over 87,000 new jobs in the last quarter of 2018.
However, IMF’s low forecast shows there’s still much more to be done to achieve 5% economic growth as envisioned in the National Development Plan.