* Despite stabilisation, several states still debt
distressed
* Global economic slowdown will curtail African exports
* South African slump weighing on regional growth
By Joe Bavier
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Sub-Saharan Africa's public
debt load is stabilising but the region's economies face
mounting headwinds due to slowing global growth that will weigh
on exports, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on
Friday.
The IMF has previously warned of the continent's rising debt
burden, largely the result of borrowing to plug gaping budget
deficits in mineral- and oil-producing countries that followed
commodities and crude oil slumps.
In its regional economic outlook, the Fund said public debt
as a percentage of GDP had settled at about 55% on average.
"What we've seen overall in the region is, by and large,
debt levels beginning to stabilise," Abebe Aemro Selassie,
director of the IMF's African Department, told Reuters.
"Going forward I expect it to remain stable provided
countries implement the budgets that they've formulated."
Still, seven countries - Eritrea, Gambia, Mozambique, Congo
Republic, Sao Tome and Principe, South Sudan and Zimbabwe - are
in debt distress, the IMF said. Nine others including Ethiopia,
Ghana and Cameroon are at high risk of debt distress.
"NOT UNAFFECTED"
The IMF projected regionwide economic growth of 3.2% this
year, trimming an April forecast of 3.5%. It sees growth
accelerating to 3.6% next year compared to its April projection
of 3.7%.
Those forecasts are more optimistic than World Bank
projections released this month. The Fund blamed the downward revision on suppressed global
growth linked to trade tensions between the United States and
China as well as output disruptions in African oil-exporting
countries and weaker than expected growth in South Africa.
"The region is not unaffected by what's going on globally,"
Selassie said.
The continent's most developed economy, South Africa is
expected to grow just 0.7% this year and 1.1% in 2020, according
to the report. Leading oil exporter Nigeria will grow 2.3% this
year and 2.5% next.
The region's third biggest economy, Ethiopia, which is
pursuing an ambitious reform programme under Nobel Prize-winning
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, is on track to record growth of 7.4%
this year, the Fund said. That will slow slightly to 7.2% in
2020.
More generally, non-resource intensive African economies are
expected to grow at an average of 6% this year, nearly three
times faster than the continent's oil producers and more than
twice as fast as other resource exporters.
The IMF projects inflation in the region to ease to 8% in
2020 from 8.4% this year. But, as with GDP growth, there are
wide differences across countries.