Growth stalls in Africa’s largest economies
Domestic political and economic headwinds are expected to threaten growth in South Africa and Nigeria this year, according to a report by economic research firm Capital Economics.
In South Africa, a burgeoning energy crisis threatens to make blackouts more common, while the state-owned public utility Eskom sinks further into debt. Frequent load shedding has dented the country’s economic output; South Africa’s mining industry output declined for the fourth straight month in November, and its manufacturing industry failed to rebound from a steep October dropoff.
Meanwhile, the prospect of violence has threatened to derail Nigeria’s elections planned for the end of this month, The Guardian reports. Fifty attacks against the country’s electoral commission have been recorded since the last election in 2019. The country recently revealed that GDP growth slowed in the third quarter of last year, and weaknesses persist in both the oil and non-oil parts of the Nigerian economy, according to Capital Economics.
