Africa Briefs

Tough 5 years for SA economySouth Africa's economy will take at least five years to recover from the impact of the coronavirus, the United Nations has said, with poverty and inequality expected to rise sharply in 2020.The UNDP said GDP would decline by 7.9% this year due to the pandemic and "recover slowly through 2024", in a socio-economic impact assessment study released Monday.Extreme poverty levels could increase by as much as 66% in 2020, with 34% of middle-class households likely to fall into the "vulnerable class".In the best-case scenario, over 47 000 South Africans could lose their jobs this year in a country where unemployment already stands above 30%. – Nampa/AFPZim caps mobile money transferZimbabwe's top mobile money transfer firm Ecocash said Wednesday it has capped individual daily transactions to US$60 on the directive of the central bank, after it was blamed for galloping inflation.Ecocash, a subsidiary of telecommunications giant Econet, said the central bank had ordered it to peg transactions to a maximum of 5 000 Zimbabwe dollars (US$60) per person "with immediate effect".In a dramatic move two months ago, the government abruptly suspended mobile money transactions provided by telephone operators and halted all trade on the country's stock exchange, accusing them of being complicit in illicit financial activities.The bourse resumed trading on August 3.In a country where cash is scarce Econet transactions, through its subsidiary firm Ecocash, accounts for around 90% of all business transactions including buying daily groceries. – Nampa/AFPNigerian economy contracts by 6.1%Nigeria's economy shrank by an annualised 6.1% in the second quarter of 2020, the statistics agency said Monday, owing to low oil prices and effects from the coronavirus.Economic activity in Africa's largest producer of crude oil had expanded by 1.87% in the first quarter, compared with the same period a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a report.Nigeria, which relies on the oil sector for 70% of government revenue and 90% of its foreign exchange earnings, has seen oil output and revenue battered by the coronavirus pandemic.Oil production stood at 1.81 million barrels per day in the second quarter, compared with 1.98 mbpd in the same period of 2019.Activity in non-oil sectors fell on average by 6.05%, the first such decline in nearly three years. – Nampa/AFPIvory Coast sees growth slowing to 1.8%Ivory Coast's economic growth is expected to slow to 1.8% in 2020 from a projected 7.2% due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, president Alassane Ouattara said on Wednesday.Several sectors of the Ivorian economy including agriculture, construction, transport and tourism have been hit by the outbreak that has slowed gross domestic product (GDP) in the world's top cocoa producer, Ouattara said.Ivory Coast's GDP growth had averaged around 8% between 2012 and 2019, Ouattara said during a speech at the annual general meeting of the African Development Bank. – Nampa/Reuters

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