Zambia expects economy to grow 4% in medium-term, president says
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Loading... - Shandra Abeng
- 29 Sep 2022
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The Zambian government expects its economy to grow at 4% per year in the medium term and is focused on resolving the country's debt crisis, President Hakainde Hichilema said on Friday.
According to the Bank of Zambia, the economy grew 3.6% in 2021 after a 2.8% contraction in 2020, when Zambia became the first African country to default on its sovereign debt during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We have put our economy on a positive growth trajectory in the last 12 months and we project the economy to bottom up from this negative growth," Hichilema told parliament, and forecast an economic expansion of 4% in the medium term.
"Fiscal management was excessively deficient and was characterized by poor resource allocation and reckless borrowing, which increased the cost of debt service resulting, unfortunately ... in a debt default," Hichilema said.
However, the government has managed to stabilize the economy within one year, the president added.
"We have consistently subdued inflation," Hichilema said.
Inflation stood at 24.4% in August 2021 but fell to a single digit of 9.8% as at August 2022, the official statistics agency, Zamstat said. Read More...
