AlQa'dah 16, 1435, Sep 11, 2014, SPA -- Economic growth in Liberia and Sierra Leone could decline by as much as 3.5 percentage points as the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola has crippled the key mining, agriculture, and service sectors in the two West African countries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday. IMF spokesman Bill Murray told reporters that growth in Guinea, where industrial mining has been unaffected so far, could fall by roughly 1.5 percentage points. "Particularly in the cases of Sierra Leone and Liberia, the largest sectors of these already fragile economies ... are being affected," Murray said. "This is in turn engendering significant financing gaps for the fiscal and external accounts of these two countries, and triggering higher inflation." Murray said that the crisis has exposed financing gaps totaling $100 million to $130 million in each of the three countries, and that the IMF is working with authorities to figure out additional funding. All three countries are already getting IMF loans under programs that predate the Ebola outbreak. The IMF said that economic growth in Sierra Leone is likely to fall to 8 percent from 11.3 percent this year, Liberia's growth may decline to 2.5 percent from 5.9 percent, and in Guinea, economic output could fall to 2.4 percent from 3.5 percent. "A large-scale and well-coordinated intervention by the international community is urgently needed to help bring the epidemic under control," Murray said.
