Sub-Saharan Africa will continue to experience its best period of sustained growth since independence, despite the global economic slowdown, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Wednesday.
In its biannual survey of the world economy, the IMF said that developing countries have become significantly more integrated into the global economy in recent years.
The economy of the Sub-Saharan Africa region grew by 6.8% in 2007. This is mainly due to domestic demand, improvements in macroeconomic stability and economic reforms in most countries, says the report.
The report however warns that the Sub-Saharan African region will not fully escape the global economic turmoil that is expected to create a global slowdown in growth.
The IMF expects world growth to slow to 3.7 percent in 2008. Further, world growth would achieve little pickup in 2009, and there is a 25 percent chance that the global economy will record 3 percent or less growth in 2008 and 2009, equivalent to a global recession.
"Against this background, growth in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2008 and 2009 is projected to slow only modestly from the pace recorded in 2007," to 6.6 and 6.7 percent, the report said.
The IMF said the region's main policy challenges were therefore "to maintain progress toward increasing integration with the global economy and to reduce poverty in the context of a less-friendly global environment."
Sapa / SAGN
