Zambia among world’s fastest growing economies – World Bank

Zambia is among the fastest growing economies in the world, according to the World Bank’s latest Africa’s Pulse, a twice yearly analysis of the issues shaping Africa’s economic prospects.

And economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to reach more than 5 percent on average in 2013-2015 as a result of high commodity prices worldwide and strong consumer spending on the continent, ensuring that the region remains amongst the fastest growing in the world.

Zambia is among a quarter of African countries the World Bank analysis report says grew by 7 percent or higher in 2012, alongside Sierra Leon,Niger,Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, and Rwanda.

The new World Bank report forecasts that medium-term growth prospects remain strong and will be supported by a gradually improving world economy, consistently high commodity prices, and more investment in regional infrastructure, trade, and business growth.
Welcoming the new assessment that Africa continues to grow faster than the global average, World Bank’s Vice President Makhtar Diop called on the need for faster progress in areas such as electricity and food in the vulnerable areas of The Sahel and the Horn of Africa, and that significantly more energy and agricultural productivity were needed to raise the quality of life for Africans throughout the continent and reduce poverty significantly.

Mr Diop also urged African governments and their development partners to upgrade the continent’s statistical capacity so that citizens could better measure and monitor their development progress and analyze the reasons for its success and failure, especially in resource-rich countries and fragile states, where data gathering and analysis remained weak.

The report says recent discoveries of oil, natural gas, copper, and other strategic minerals, and the expansion of several mines or the building of new ones in Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, together with better political and economic governance,were sustaining solid economic growth across the continent.