| Southern Africa boasts higher economic growth in 2005 |
MASERU, Aug. 16 -- The Southern African Development Community (SADC) as a region recorded a higher economic growth rate of 5 percent in 2005, up from 4.1 percent in 2004, officials said here on Wednesday.
"The region recorded an overall 5 percent growth in real GDP in 2005 which is projected to grow to 6 percent in 2006," Timothy Thahane, Chairperson of the SADC Council of Ministers said at a press conference.
According to SADC Secretariat, the average real GDP growth of 5 percent in 2005 indicates an overall increase in macroeconomic performance in SADC despite disparities amongst member states, with some SADC countries recording a reasonably high growth while others have grown minimally.
Angola achieved the highest real GDP growth of 15.6 percent, followed by Botswana at 8.3 percent, Mozambique with 7.7 percent and Tanzania, 6.9 percent, while South Africa achieved about 5 percent increase in its real GDP in 2005.
"But the region still need to work hard as it remains below the7 percent target for the developing nations to attain the Millennium Development Goals by 2015," said Thahane, who is also Lesotho's Minister of Finance and Economic Planning.
It is crucial for SADC member states to continue to pursuing low inflation policies to improve the overall economic performance and to attract more Foreign Direct Investment, SADC Secretariat has warned.
Majority of SADC member states continued to tighten their monetary policies and maintaining low inflation rates at one digit. But Zimbabwe recorded a inflation increase up to 190 percent, which shot the regional average to 23 percent as opposed to a moderate 10.8 percent had Zimbabwe not been computed.
Despite the economic achievements, the SADC nations still face lots of challenges in economy field. Slow progress in the implementation of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Relief Initiative left some SADC economies increasing external debt burdens by continued borrowing to finance their poverty reduction strategies, officials said.
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