By Jacob Kubeka –
Senegal’s economy is set to expand by 5% in 2021, as a result of industrial output, according to the International Monetary Fund, which raised its prior prediction of 3.5 percent for this year.
The Fund announced that it has reached a staff-level agreement with the West African country, which might open the door for an additional $180 million loan to be disbursed under an existing loan agreement.
Senegal is attempting to recover from the pandemic’s economic shock, which led real GDP growth to decelerate to 1.5 percent in 2020 from 4.4 percent the previous year.
“On the back of solid industrial and services production, Senegal’s economic rebound through September 2021 was better than expected, even as the country faced a third wave of the epidemic in the third quarter,” the IMF stated in a statement.
It forecast economic growth accelerating to 5.5% in 2022, and to peak at about 10% in 2023-24 with the start of oil and gas production, before easing to around 6% over the medium term.
(Reuters)