IMF Projects Zimbabwe's 'Growth In 2020 At Near Zero, Food Shortages Continuing'

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has in its document titled ‘IMF Executive Board Concludes 2020 Article IV Consultation with Zimbabwe’ projected a gloomy 2020 for Zimbabwe.

The fund observes that Zimbabwe is currently experiencing an economic and humanitarian crisis exacerbated by policy missteps and climate‑related shocks. IMF said:

The climate shocks have magnified the social impacts of the fiscal retrenchment, leaving more than half of the population food insecure. With another poor harvest expected, growth in 2020 is projected at near zero, with food shortages continuing. 

IMF also indicates that in 2018, Zimbabwe focused on macro stabilization and reforms supported by  a Staff Monitored Program from the IMF but “is now off-track as policy implementation has been mixed.”

The fund also observes that notable reforms registered so far include a “significant fiscal consolidation that has helped reduce the monetary financing of the deficit, the introduction of the new domestic currency in February 2019, the creation of an interbank FX market, and the restructuring of the command agriculture financing model to a public-private partnership with commercial banks.”

These projections are a contradiction to the fund’s last year and Mthuli’s projections. IMF projected that the economy would contract in 2019 before rebounding to 3,3% growth in 2020 while Ncube projected significant growth in 2020.

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