World Bank, Malawi govt contradict on economic growth rate

The World Bank has said the Malawi economy is expected to grow by 2.6 per cent this year, sharply contradicting Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe’s prediction of five percent.

In its annual report of World Economic Monitor entitled ‘Absorbing shocks, building reslience,` the World Bank attributed the slow growth to the shocks of El Nino powered weather phenomenon.

“The economy will continue to adverse weather effects,” says the report in part.

Malawi recorded a 2.8 per cent, pushing the cost of living up higher.

The World Bank says the recovery process of the economy will continue to be slow, saying it will pick up slowly in 2017.

In the 2016/17 National Budget presented in Parliament in Lilongwe, Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe projected that the economy is expected to rebound from a growth rate of 3.1 percent in 2015 to 5.1 percent in 2016..

He said although the economy has been depressed by the El Nino weather episode which adversely affected smallholder agricultural production, commercial agriculture has registered an increase.

Locally, Economics Association of Malawi (Ecama) and Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn) also questioned government’s optimism .

Mejn executive director Dalitso Kubalasa said government’s assumptions amid the current status of the economy are a bit presumptuous and “not based on realities on the ground.”

While Ecama president Henry Kachaje said a three percent growth rate could have been more realistic.

He said the conditions the country faced last year that led to the revision of the GDP growth rate from six percent to 3.1 percent are still prevailing.

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