IMF’s new growth forecasts underscore growing vulnerabilities

The IMF last week made significant downward revisions to its economic growth forecasts for sub- Saharan Africa (SSA) for 2014-15, leaving them close in line with our own. Indeed, this is another sign of the consensus coming round to our view that a number of countries in SSA look set for a period of weaker growth over the next couple of years. We think the IMF’s revised forecasts could be followed up by ratings downgrades for Ghana and Zambia over the coming months.