Is Africa’s economic downturn finally bottoming out?

The latest GDP figures all support our view that economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole will be even worse in 2016 than it was in 2015, when it hit a 16-year low. The key question now is whether the slump is near its low point. The data released over the past month paint a somewhat mixed picture. Of the countries that have published Q2 figures, growth slowed in Nigeria, Ghana, and Rwanda, but accelerated in South Africa. Given the lack of timely economic data, figures showing that the situation has turned won’t be available for months after things have started to improve. We will be keeping an eye on lower profile indicators in order to get a clearer idea of how the situation develops. We expect that things will hit bottom – at a regional level, at least – in Q3 2016, and then improve going into Q4 2016 and Q1 2017.