DAKAR (Reuters) – Senegal’s economy will grow 5% in 2021 thanks in part to solid industrial output, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday, revising up a previous forecast of 3.5% growth for this year.
The Fund said it had reached a staff-level agreement with the West African nation that could pave the way for the disbursement of around a further $180 million under an existing loan deal.
Senegal is seeking to recover from the economic shock of the pandemic, which caused its real GDP growth to slow to 1.5% in 2020 from 4.4% a year earlier.
“Senegal’s economic rebound through September 2021 was stronger than envisaged, even as the country faced a third wave of the pandemic in the third quarter, on the back of solid industrial and services production,” the IMF said in statement.
It forecast economic growth accelerating to 5.5% in 2022, and to peak at about 10% in 2023-24 with the start of oil and gas production, before easing to around 6% over the medium term.
(Reporting by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Alistair Bell)
