Mozambique cuts 2020 economic growth forecast to 0.8% from 1.6% – govt

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Mozambique cuts 2020 economic growth forecast to 0.8% from 1.6% – govt

2:09 CAT | 26 Aug 2020

Photo: O País

The Mozambican government yesterday lowered its economic growth forecast for this year from 1.6% to 0.8%, explaining that the situation is due to the negative effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic in the country and worldwide.

At the usual post-Council of Ministers press briefing, the government said that it considered the resolution approving the medium-term fiscal scenario for the three-year period until 2023, by which time it expects growth of 3.8%, despite the effects of the pandemic.

The government said that macroeconomic assumptions were reviewed this Tuesday, and it was concluded that the medium-term fiscal scenario will, this year, fall from the previous 1.6% to 0.8%.

Acting as spokesperson for the Council of Ministers, Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce Ludovina Bernardo explained that the fiscal scenario was an instrument of national programming through which the executive undertook a triennial planning and budgeting exercise.

The 3.8% growth that the government expects until 2023 is therefore “moderate”, and taking Covid-19 into account.

Deputy Minister Bernardo noted that, in the same document analysed this Tuesday, “strategic options are organised, analysed and updated” for the materialisation on broad lines of the implementation of the government’s Five-Year Plan.

The Council of Ministers also considered and approved the decree that redefines the attributions and establishes the competences of the National Employment Institute, “and also adjusts the respective supervisory body”.

This last measure results from Presidential Decree 2/2020, of 30 January, through which the State Secretariat for Youth Employment was created, as a result of the winding-up of the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security and of the Ministry of Youth.

Source: O País