{"id":3188,"date":"2026-01-04T17:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T17:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/3188\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T17:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T17:12:16","slug":"namibia-cuts-2025-growth-forecast-due-to-manufacturing-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/3188\/","title":{"rendered":"Namibia cuts 2025 growth forecast due to manufacturing slump"},"content":{"rendered":"

WINDHOEK, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Namibia now expects economic growth of 3.3% this year, down from the 4.5% estimate given when the main budget was presented in March<\/a> because of a projected contraction in its manufacturing sector, its finance minister said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In a mid-year budget review, Ericah Shafudah said so far this year manufacturing activity had been weighed down by lower diamond processing, as well as reduced cement and blister copper production.<\/p>\n

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The outlook for the Southern African country’s primary sector is more positive, with growth of 2.5% seen this year compared to last year’s 1.8% growth, supported by increased mining of uranium and other minerals.<\/p>\n

Average growth for the next three fiscal years is seen at 3.6%, down from 4.3% previously, Shafudah added.<\/p>\n

She also pointed to a deterioration in the trajectory of public finances.<\/p>\n

Namibia’s budget deficit last fiscal year widened to 4.0% of gross domestic product, compared to a deficit of 2.0% of GDP a year before.<\/p>\n

“If left unattended (the worsening trend) is highly undesirable and will lead to serious deterioration of key fiscal anchors such as the debt-to-GDP ratio,” Shafudah said.<\/p>\n

Namibia’s central bank last week cut its main lending rate<\/a> (NACBIR=ECI), opens new tab<\/a> by 25 basis points to 6.50% to try to stimulate the sluggish economy.<\/p>\n

($1 = 17.3070 Namibian dollars)<\/p>\n

Reporting by Nyasha Nyaungwa; Writing by Sfundo Parakozov; Editing by Alexander Winning and Chris Reese<\/p>\n

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n

Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINDHOEK, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Namibia now expects economic growth of 3.3% this year, down from the 4.5%…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[488,2784,1877,2785,1597,2786,2787,688,715,495,1878,1585,1586,491,493,714,2557,690,691,2788,1589,1881,1882,1883,638,102,1850,695,1399,1779,1776],"class_list":{"0":"post-3188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-namibia","8":"tag-afr","9":"tag-basmtl","10":"tag-bmat","11":"tag-cemcon","12":"tag-com","13":"tag-coma","14":"tag-cppr","15":"tag-dbt","16":"tag-destozabsm","17":"tag-destozatpm","18":"tag-diam","19":"tag-eci","20":"tag-eco","21":"tag-emea","22":"tag-emrg","23":"tag-fin","24":"tag-gdp","25":"tag-gen","26":"tag-gfin","27":"tag-ipr","28":"tag-mce","29":"tag-metl","30":"tag-min","31":"tag-mine","32":"tag-na","33":"tag-namibia","34":"tag-plcy","35":"tag-pol","36":"tag-safr","37":"tag-topcmb","38":"tag-topnws"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}