{"id":75646,"date":"2019-03-15T04:49:52","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T02:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=75646"},"modified":"2019-03-15T04:49:52","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T02:49:52","slug":"imf-revises-malawis-2019-growth-to-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/03\/15\/imf-revises-malawis-2019-growth-to-5\/","title":{"rendered":"IMF revises Malawi\u2019s 2019 growth to 5%"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Chimwemwe Mangazi:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_75650\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-75650\" style=\"width: 268px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/pritha-mitra.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-75650\" src=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/pritha-mitra-268x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"268\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/pritha-mitra-268x300.jpg 268w, https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/pritha-mitra.jpg 326w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 268px) 100vw, 268px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-75650\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">MITRA\u2014Economic outlook is favourable<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised upwards Malawi\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/goodall-gondwe-sees-robust-gdp-after-rebasing\/\">Gross Domestic Product<\/a> (GDP) growth for 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The Bretton Woods\u2019 institution has predicted that Malawi\u2019s economy would swell by 5 percent this year owing to an expected bumper yield and improvement in electricity supply.<\/p>\n<p>IMF Mission Chief for Malawi, Pritha Mitra, said this Thursday on the sidelines of a press briefing she jointly held with Minister of Finance, Goodall Gondwe, in Lilongwe, at the end of the second review of the three-year Extended Credit Facility support programme.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, IMF predicted that the Malawi economy would grow by 4.1 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Mitra said the economic outlook was favourable, with a likelihood of continued growth in the short to medium terms.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cIn the medium-term, growth could rise further to 6-7 percent, driven by infrastructure projects including electricity generation, crop diversification, greater access to finance and an improved business climate,\u201d<\/em> Mitra said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>She said inflation was expected to ease to around 8 percent at the end of 2019 and gradually converge to 5 percent over the medium term.<\/p>\n<p>In a separate interview, Gondwe remained ambitious, pegging the growth prospect at 9 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The estimate is higher than the 7 percent rise prospect the government made.<\/p>\n<p>The country has been subjected to devastating power outages for years now, a situation that has negatively affected the private sector and economic growth prospects.<\/p>\n<p>A 2018 last quarter Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry Economic Review showed that economic growth prospects may still be subdued by weakened performance of the industry.<\/p>\n<p>Real GDP growth was estimated at 3.7 percent in 2018, down from 5.1 percent in 2016\/17, largely affected by a prolonged dry spell in the first half of 2018 and the fall <a href=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/fall-armyworm-attacks-206000-hectares\/\">armyworm<\/a> infestation, which reduced maize output.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Chimwemwe Mangazi: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised upwards Malawi\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for 2019. The Bretton Woods\u2019 institution has predicted that Malawi\u2019s economy would swell by 5 percent this year owing to an expected bumper yield and improvement in electricity supply. IMF Mission Chief for Malawi, Pritha Mitra, said this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":61948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75651,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75646\/revisions\/75651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}