IMF: Tanzania among fastest growing economies in 2024

Arusha. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast that Tanzania will register fast economic growth in 2024.

The East African nation is among the 12 African countries and 22 globally ranked high in economic growth for next year.

Within eastern Africa, Tanzania is featured alongside Ethiopia. Both countries are projected to attract more foreign investment.

"Tanzania and Ethiopia are turning into bigger players in sub-Saharan African economic growth day by day," the IMF said in a report.

Local production and industrial development were cited as the crucial gears that have led to positive growth in the two states.

"These countries continue to move at full speed and will experience greater development in the coming years," the report posted on various websites said recently.

According to the Bretton Woods institution, the estimated growth figures for Tanzania and Ethiopia in 2024 are 6.1 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively.

The two countries have turned out to be important heavyweights of the East African bloc "and are likely to attract more foreign investors."

Other countries within the East African region among the top 12 in Africa projected to register fast growth are Rwanda and Burundi.

Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda are member states of the eight-nation East African Community (EAC).

Rwanda will register seven percent growth during 2024, while Burundi's economy is forecast to grow by six percent.

Although tiny Burundi is the last of the 12 African countries on the 'fast growth' list, its growth is ahead of many countries in Europe.

In Burundi, trade is mostly managed by the local people, while the economy is based on imports and smallholder agriculture.

Globally, Macau, a special administrative region of China, is leading with a projected 27 percent growth next year, followed by Guyana at 26 percent.

According to the IMF, the projected global growth forecast for next year is only 2.9 percent, far below the projections of most African countries.

"Considering that these growth figures extend over the next 25 years, it would not be difficult to predict how important the African continent will be in the near term.”

"In short, we can see very simply that the future is in Africa," the report said, noting that Niger, which recently plunged into a crisis after a military coup, tops the list of African countries.

Rwanda, whose growth has amazed international multilateral organisations, has been described as the pearl of East Africa.

"It is progressing in a development that will set an example for the whole world given the economic stability and the environment of trust," the report said.

"These countries are already at the forefront of what we call Africa's leading countries, both in terms of production, exports, digital transformation and culture.

"Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire, along with the Lebanese diaspora in the Ivory Coast, also provide significant resources for economic development in these two countries," it said.