UN report says African economy growing faster in 2001

Source: Xinhua via COMTEX

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Story Filed: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 6:06 AM EST

ADDIS ABABA, Jul 17, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The African economy grew faster than any other developing region in the year of 2001, reflecting better macroeconomic management, strong agricultural production and the cessation of conflicts in several countries, a UN report said Wednesday.

The global slowdown since the September 11 attack has had a much less pronounced impact on Africa than expected, the report said, adding, "Africa's overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is estimated to have increased to 4.3 percent in 2001 from 3.5 percent in 2000."

In 2001, just 16 African countries experienced GDP growth of less than 3 percent down from 27 countries in 2000, and the number of countries with growth rates exceeding 3 percent increased from 26 in 2000 to 37 in 2001.

And also three more countries are expected to join this group in 2002, thus most African countries appear to be converging towards growth rates above the traditional 3 percent with positive implications for poverty reduction, according to the report issued by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

It said African exports to the United States jumped from 1.5 billion US dollars a month in 1999 to 2.3 billion a month in 2000.

"African exports received a further boost with the January 2001 implementation of the US African Growth and Opportunity Act."

Africa's emerging markets experienced a sharp increase in private capital flows and between 2000 and 2001, net private flows to Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia nearly doubled from 4.9 billion dollars to 9.5 billion dollars.

"In addition, net equity investment jumped from 5.2 billion dollars to 9.3 billion dollars mainly reflecting large-scale deals in Morocco and South Africa.

"And despite weakness in global equity markets, net portfolio equity flows shot from 1.7 billion dollars to 4.5 billion," said the ECA, a UN economic organ based in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

The report, entitled "Economic Report on Africa 2002: Tracking Performance and Progress", also noted that economic growth in Africa remains fragile, and at current rates of progress, Africa will not achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals set by the UN of cutting poverty in half by 2015.