SADC fears inflation demon
05/08/2007 18:14  - (SA)  

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Gabarone - The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) expects a growth rate of 7% in 2007, but faces challenges of high inflation, the SADC executive secretary said on Saturday.

Tomaz Salomao hailed economic development in the region, saying SADC economic performance had improved in terms of growth in output and per capita income in 2006 compared to 2005.

"The SADC average real GDP grew at about 5% in 2006, the same as in 2005," Salomao told a media briefing at the SADC headquarters ahead of a SADC summit to be held in Zambia from August 16 to 18.

He said that growth outlook for the region was predicted at around 7% in 2007.

He singled out Angola as having achieved the highest GDP annual growth rate of 18.6% in 2006, while other high performers included Mozambique and Malawi at 7.9% and 7.4% respectively.

The SADC boss noted that Zimbabwe, which continues to experience economic and political turmoil, recorded the worst growth rate of negative 4.4% in 2006.

Without including Zimbabwe, SADC's inflation remained at 17.3% this year, while Zimbabwe alone recorded inflation of 1 016.7% in 2006, he said.

Salomao warned that inflation in the region was higher than the Sub-Saharan Africa average of 13% for 2007, and was also higher than the SADC macroeconomic target of achieving single digit inflation by 2008.

However he attributed high inflation to soaring oil prices.

-AFP

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