Getting back into gear

We expect that economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa will continue to accelerate in 2018. This recovery will be driven largely by faster growth in South Africa and Nigeria, the region’s two biggest economies. Indeed, our views on South Africa are significantly more bullish than the very downbeat consensus forecast. Performances elsewhere in the region will be mixed, but growth will accelerate in more economies than it slows. Angola is the only economy which we expect will contract this year. Slowdowns elsewhere – notably in Ghana, Tanzania, and Ethiopia – will be pretty gentle. African currencies will mostly continue to depreciate in 2018, but will do so at a more gradual pace than in 2017. Overall, we expect that inflation will slow. This will allow central banks across Africa to continue their loosening cycles this year, providing another boost to growth.