IMF: Gambia Could See 10% Growth in 2013

Gambia could see economic growth hit 10 percent next year on the back of an expected rebound in its drought-stricken agricultural sector, an International Monetary Fund official said on Tuesday. The tiny West African nation's central bank in July projected a 1.7 percent contraction of GDP for 2012, which would represent the second straight dip in output after growth slipped to 3.3 percent last year from 5.5 percent in 2010.
Gambia appealed for food aid in March after it said that 70 percent of its crops failed during the last growing season.
But David Dunn, who headed a one-week IMF mission to the country, said the agricultural sector is expected to return to full output next year, leading a broad economic revival.
"Based on a projected further rebound in agriculture in 2013, which anticipates that crop production will have fully recovered to pre-drought levels, real GDP growth could surge to about 10 percent next year," Dunn said at the end of the mission.
Growth is then expected to return to a medium-term trend of around 5.5 percent in the mid-term, he said.
Gambia, which had a GDP of around $1 billion in 2010 and is heavily dependent upon agriculture and tourism, remains vulnerable to external shocks.
"The possibility of prolonged weaknesses in the global economy or strong shocks to food and fuel prices could dampen growth in key sectors of the Gambian economy," Dunn said.
Some 60 percent of the country of 1.7 million people, living in a nation completely surrounded on land Senegal, are farmers.

Source: Reuters Africa