Biruk Girma
27 March 2008
Addis Abeba — East Africa is expected to continue to lead the five region of the continent with a growth rate of 6.6 percent, survey predicts.
Strong commodity demand and continued high prices combined with favorable rainfall and accelerated growth in agriculture boosted economic activity in the industrial and services sectors as well as overall growth in most of the countries of East Africa, according to the survey.
Increased government investment is infrastructure policies to encourage private sector development and investment in manufacturing as well as rising FDI and tourism were included in the survey as other growth factors in the region.
The results of the survey were release on Wednsday at the opening of the first joint annual meetings of the AU conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance and ECA conference of African Ministers of Finance, planning and Economic Development.
The survey said despite risks, Africa's medium-term outlook conditions in Africa in 2007, real economic growth in the continent was projected to slightly improve to 6.2% in 2008 compared with 5.8% in 2007.
The East African region would be followed by west Africa to score 6.4% growth rate, followed by Southern Africa with 6.3%, North Africa, 6.1% and Central Africa 5.4% this year.
The survey indicated that Ethiopia led the E.Africa region with a 9.5 percent real GDP growth rate in 2007, followed by Tanzania, 7.0% , DRC,6.5%, Madagascar, 6.4%%, Kenya, 6.1%, Uganda, 6.0%, and Seychelles, 5.8%.
According to the survey which cited UN-DESA Africa Database as a source, sub regional growth performance of the continent varied substantially in 2007.
" growth performance slightly decelerated in North Africa, all other regions experienced higher growth in 2007 compared with 2006. This indicates that growth in Africa is widely shared across regions," the survey said.
East Africa, a non-oil region with limited mineral exports, continued to lead economic performance in Africa, where as central Africa lagged behind all other regions in 2007, according to the survey.
The IN-DESA, 2007 a Africa Database has showed in October that Angola topped best performers in Africa in 2007 scoring 21.0% annual growth followed by Sudan, 11.0%, Eq.Guniea, 10.0%, Liberia and Ethiopia, 9.5% both.
The report put Somalia, -3.5%, Zimbabwe, -2.5% and Chad, -0.5% as top bottom performers.
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