Business
Africa now in a position to add to global growth
The World Bank this week highlighted Africa’s progress in reducing poverty. Its latest global poverty update shows that the region’s poverty rate fell from 58.1 percent in 1999 to 47.5 percent in 2008.
A recent report by consultancy McKinsey & Co, noting that Africa has the world’s fastest growing population, said that its booming consumer demand, not natural resources, would drive growth.
However, the African continent remains extremely vulnerable to external shocks, said the two finance ministers.
Growth in Africa was reduced between one and two percentage points by the food crisis in 2008-2009, Ngozi said.
“We are concerned,” she said. If slow growth persists in the eurozone, which provides a large market for many African countries, and if growth slows in emerging-market economies, “we will be more vulnerable”.
That was why “we also asked our partners in other parts of the world to work hard and faster so the the global uncertainties that we confront in the eurozone improve,” the Nigerian finance minister said.
Copyright 2013 AFP
