Ethiopia’s economic growth has slowed down to 8% in 2015/2016 fiscal year, marking its slowest growth in nearly a decade. The country had previously averaged growth of 10% over the last ten years, emerging as one of the fastest developing economies in the world.
The planning commission says this year’s projected growth of 11% had been hit by a devastating drought that has affected the harvest in large areas of the country.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), had earlier warned that Ethiopia’s economy would shrink to just 4.5% this year due to the drought, which is the worst in more than thirty years. But the government dismissed those figures, insisting on a higher growth figure of 8%.
Some analysts have also predicted that economic growth could further be affected by the anti-government protests in the Oromia and Amhara regions that have seen dozens of foreign owned factories and flowers farms attacked by demonstrators.
Source: BBC