{"id":2630,"date":"2011-06-21T12:06:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T12:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=2630"},"modified":"2011-06-21T12:06:14","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T12:06:14","slug":"imf-casts-doubt-on-malawi-growth-forecasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/21\/imf-casts-doubt-on-malawi-growth-forecasts\/","title":{"rendered":"IMF casts doubt on Malawi growth forecasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"LILONGWE, June 20\u00a0(Reuters) – Malawi government’s economic growth forecasts of 6.9 percent for this year and 6.6 percent for next are not realistic, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday.<\/p>\n

“Government is more optimistic than we are,” IMF resident representative Ruby Randall told a news conference in the southern African nation’s capital.<\/p>\n

“There are a number of structural constraints that Malawian industry is facing, like the shortage of fuel, inconsistent electricity supply, water shortages in cities,” she said. “All this has affected output.”<\/p>\n

“We have to be more objective because the growth rates are not realistic when you consider all these structural constraints,” she added.<\/p>\n

In his 2011\/12 budget, Finance Minister Ken Kandodo based his growth projections on an expected strong performance by the agriculture sector, as well as mining and construction.<\/p>\n

However, a sharp drop in foreign aid that has followed a diplomatic spat with London has caused many analysts to question the projections as overly rosy.<\/p>\n

Last year aid represented 30 percent of government revenue, compared to only 21 percent this financial year.<\/p>\n

Compounding the problems, Randall also confirmed that a 3-year $79 million loan facility approved in February last year had stalled because of the government’s failure to complete a review of the programme.<\/p>\n

The reduction in aid flows and a dismal outlook for the tobacco sector, which accounts for 70 percent of foreign currency earnings, are putting major pressure on the kwacha MWK=, which is pegged at 150 to the dollar.<\/p>\n

Randall said last week the currency was overvalued. (Reporting by Mabvuto Banda, Editing by Ed Cropley)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LILONGWE, June 20\u00a0(Reuters) – Malawi government’s economic growth forecasts of 6.9 percent for this year and 6.6 percent for next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[754,332,258],"class_list":["post-2630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-forecast","tag-growth","tag-malawi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}