Browsing: International Monetary Fund(IMF)

• Ghana, a top gold and cocoa exporter rich in oil and gas deposits, is struggling with a $55 billion debt burden.
• About 70 percent to 100 percent of the government revenue currently goes toward servicing the country’s debt.
• It is estimated that Ghana’s debt-to-GDP will reach 98.7 percent by the end of 2023.

Crisis-saddled Ghana is seeing about $15 billion in external debt relief by 2026, the International Monetary Fund has said even as the country pursues debt restructuring plan with investors. In December 2022, Ghana suspended payments on most of its foreign debts effectively defaulting as policymakers started restructuring plans as part of a bailout deal with the IMF.

Initial plan was an agreement to suspend service payments of its Eurobonds, commercial loans and most bilateral loans. Further, as an interim emergency measure, the government moved to engage its external creditors in what it thought was best in making …

This comes as the IMF has downgraded economic prospects for countries in this cluster. The downgrades have, however, been offset relatively by projections for some commodity producers and exporters that were upgraded on the back of rising commodity prices.

The economic prospects between wealthy nations and low-income countries are expected to be divergent and this divergence will remain of great concern to multilateral lenders and world leaders. In wealthy nations, for example, aggregate output for the cluster economies is expected to regain its pre-pandemic trend path in 2022 and exceed it by 0.9% in 2024 whereas the cluster of nations comprise emerging markets and developing economies (excluding China) will remain 5.5% below their pre-pandemic forecasts in 2024.

This event should it occur as forecast will set back improvements in living standards.…

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved $49.1 million disbursements to Lesotho to help meet the urgent balance of payment needs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the disbursement, about $16.5 million is under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) while about $32.6 million from the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI).

The Pandemic comes at a time when the economy of Lesotho was already facing challenges. For several years, Lesotho’s growth has been subdued reflecting a weak regional environment while its government finances have struggled to cope with the volatility of transfers from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) that account for around half of total revenues.

Despite Madagascar relatively well-developed social assistance framework that partially mitigates the high levels of poverty, unemployment remains high while the population suffers from one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world.

As a measure to cushion the impact on …

Kenya is on the right path in the fight against corruption, The International Monetary Fund has said.

IMF Director for African Department Abebe Selassie has commended President Uhuru Kenyatta for spearheading the war against corruption, saying the country was well.

According to Abebe, the IMF is satisfied with the stable economic growth that averages between 5.5 per cent and 6.0 per cent as a result of the ongoing fiscal reforms that the Kenyan Government is implementing to ensure macroeconomic stability.

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“Because of this, Kenya is a leading light in terms of economic reforms and growth in the region,” Selassie said.

The Director for the African Department of the IMF spoke on Monday when he paid the President a courtesy call at State House, Nairobi.

During the meeting, the President and Mr Selassie discussed the relationship between Kenya and the Bretton …

The Kenyan economy is projected to grow by 5.8 per cent on average in 2019, according to GDP projections from 16 research houses, global agencies, and government organizations that were tracked during the half-year period to June.

This will be driven by among others, growth in the agriculture sector, implementation of the Big 4 Agenda projects by the government, and recovery in the business environment evidenced by the Stanbic Bank Monthly Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which rose to 51.3 in May 2019 from 49.3 recorded in April, an indication of improving business conditions.

Among firms that have projected the growth includes Cytonn Investment which had foreseen a 5.8 per cent growth in H1’2019 and a similar growth in the second half of the year.

“Cytonn maintains a positive outlook for the macroeconomic environment in Kenya in their H1’2019 review, with expectations of strong economic performance with a GDP growth of …