Africa is set for stronger economic growth in 2008, buoyed by surging demand for its oil and commodities and rising foreign investment in leading countries South Africa and Nigeria, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Saturday, according to DPA. Growth in Africa south of the Sahara desert should reach 6 per cent in 2007 and rise to 6.75 per cent next year, extending a broad-based expansion that is the region's strongest in more than 30 years, an IMF report said. Debt relief is also helping, it said. "The region looks well-poised to sustain its growth momentum, " Abdoulaye Bio-Tchane, head of the IMF's Africa department, told reporters in Washington. "There's still plenty to do, of course." Average inflation is expected to drop to 6.7 per cent next year from about 7.5 per cent in 2007, despite higher commodity prices, the report said. Although the economic expansion is strongest in oil-exporting countries, it is cutting across all country groups. Private capital inflows to sub-Saharan Africa have tripled since 2003, particularly to South Africa and Nigeria, as governments pursue market-oriented reforms, the IMF said. Growth in oil-exporting countries should quicken to about 7.5 per cent in 2007 and to more than 10.5 per cent next year led by Angola and Equatorial Guinea, where new oil fields have come on stream, the report said. In Nigeria, disruptions to oil output from civil unrest in the Niger Delta are being partly offset by new offshore production, the IMF noted. Africa's middle-income economies were tipped to expand by nearly 5 per cent growth this year, paced by South Africa, but growth was expected to slow in 2008. Poorer African countries are expected to boost growth slightly next year to about 7 per cent, fuelled by agriculture and construction, the report said.
