Amahoro National Stadium facelift is undergoing
A new report by Africa Development Bank has shown that Rwanda will be among the top 11 African countries projected to experience strong economic performance forecast in the next two financial years, as Africa dominates list of the world’s 20 fastest-growing economies in 2024.
Africa will account for eleven of the world’s 20 fastest-growing economies in 2024, and continent is set to remain the second-fastest-growing region after Asia, the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group said in its latest Macroeconomic Performance and Outlook (MEO) of the continent released recently.
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The top 11 African countries (by economic performance) are: Niger (11.2%), Senegal (8.2%), Libya (7.9%), Rwanda (7.2%), Cote d’Ivoire (6.8%), Ethiopia (6.7%), Benin (6.4%), Djibouti (6.2%), Tanzania (6.1%), Togo (6%), and Uganda at 6%.
Overview of Economic Outlook Across Regions
The confluence of shocks notwithstanding, the resilience of the continent’s economies remains strong, with positive growth projected for the continent’s five regions.
The East Africa will continue to lead Africa’s growth momentum, with growth projected to rise to 5.1% in 2024 and 5.7% in 2025, supported by strong strategic investments to improve internal connectivity and deepen intra-regional trade.
North Africa: Successive adverse weather conditions and macroeconomic challenges will hold the region’s growth steady at 3.9% in 2024 with a slight improvement to 4.1% in 2025.
Central Africa Growth is forecast to moderate to 3.5% in 2024 but projected recovery in private consumption and increases in mining investment and exports could help push growth to 4.1% in 2025.
Southern Africa Growth will remain sluggish at 2.2 and 2.6% in 2024 and 2025, respectively. This reflects continued economic weakness in South Africa, the region’s largest economy.
West Africa Growth is projected to pick up to 4 and 4.4% in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Strong growth in most countries in the region is projected to offset slowdowns in Nigeria and Ghana. The announced withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) casts a shadow over the sustainability of gains amid growing uncertainty.
To drive a faster and more sustainable economic growth, the 2024 MEO says in the short term, tackling persistent inflation will need a mix of restraining monetary policy coupled with fiscal consolidation and stable exchange rates.
The report identifies structural reforms and strategic industrial policies as key to accelerating economic diversification and strengthening the export sector.
It recommends that countries invest more in human capital and pursue a resource-based industrialization and diversification strategy that allows the continent to exploit its comparative advantage and build resilience to shocks.
Through post Covid-19 recovery economic fund (Rwf459billion), financial policies and strategies, Rwanda has currently indicated signs of working on these areas as the state of the economic recovery as presented by the Prime Minister recently.
PM Dr. Édouard Ngirente said that the economy has in the last three financial years (2021-2023) seen an average annual growth of 8%.
Since 2021 it grew at 10.9%, in 2022 at 8.2%, and a projected calculation (based on the IMF) results of the fourth quarter 2023 will come with a growth of 7% compared to the 6.2% growth projected.
“This is the growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) in our country was attributed to the increase in productivity in different sectors of the economy, especially the service sector,” Ngirente said.
Service sector productivity rose in an interesting way, moving from a rate of minus 6% in 2020 to 12% in the year 2021 and 2022.
Price inflation grew in 2021 and from the year 2022 and 2023 it increased from a rate of 1.9% to 21.6% but Ngirente said that projections for the end of 2023 show that prices will drop to 6.4% and expected to reach 5% (as of January 2024 projections).
