Long abstract

About Statistics Publications & Documents Information by Country

Growth in emerging economies is also expected to slow dramatically. In turn, world trade is expected to contract by 13.2% in 2009 – its first decline in 60 years. For Africa this means that growth projections for 2009 have fallen to 2.8% after four consecutive years above 5%.
The hardest hit African economies are those that are heavily reliant on commodity exports. Most commodity prices have fallen back to their 2005 or 2006 levels, many of them registering declines of 40% or more. Net oilimporting African countries face a different set of challenges, with GDP growth in many of them expected to fall sharply in 2009 and 2010. For many countries in the region, the persistence of high prices for internationally traded food continues to contribute to a food crisis, especially for the urban poor.
Meanwhile, inflation continues to rise, although at a more moderate pace. This is mainly due to a more complete pass-through of international oil price increases to consumers combined with increases in the international prices of grains and vegetable oils.