{"id":54970,"date":"2025-04-27T14:33:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T14:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/54970\/"},"modified":"2025-04-27T14:33:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T14:33:12","slug":"one-of-africas-richest-countries-set-to-be-overtaken-by-neighbour-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/54970\/","title":{"rendered":"One of Africa’s ‘richest’ countries set to be overtaken by neighbour | World | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kenya is on track to overtake Ethiopia as East Africa’s<\/a> largest economy this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).<\/p>\n

The IMF predicted that Kenya’s gross domestic product will reach $132billion (\u00a399billion) in 2025, surpassing Ethiopia’s projected $117 (\u00a387) billion. This follows Ethiopia’s<\/a> decision to liberalise its exchange rate system in July, which led to a depreciation of more than 55% against the dollar, Bloomberg<\/a> reports. Despite this, Ethiopia secured a $3.4billion (\u00a32.5billion) loan from the IMF and $16.6billion (\u00a312billion) from the World Bank, and began discussions with creditors about restructuring at least half of its $28.9billion (\u00a321billion) external debt. In contrast, the Kenyan shilling strengthened by around 21% last year, making it the best-performing<\/a> currency worldwide.<\/p>\n

The shilling was further boosted when Kenya issued a $1.5billion (\u00a31.1billion) bond in February, enabling it to increase its gross reserves.<\/p>\n

Higher remittances from the diaspora and increased export receipts over the past year have also contributed to this, according to Kenya’s Treasury.<\/p>\n

However, Kenya faces its own challenges. A controversial plan to raise taxes and reduce the budget<\/a> deficit sparked protests last year, resulting in at least 60 deaths.<\/p>\n

The government was forced to revise its plans, making it difficult to meet targets under a four-year $3.6billion (\u00a32.7billion) IMF programme. It had to end the programme early, forfeiting around $850million (\u00a3638 million), and is currently negotiating a new one.<\/p>\n

Both East African countries are set to face the challenges of trade wars<\/a>, a factor that prompted the IMF to downgrade its global growth predictions on Tuesday from 3.3% to 2.8%.<\/p>\n

The IMF has warned that increased US tariffs<\/a> are likely to cause a demand shock among its trading partners, impacting both production and prices.<\/p>\n

The GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to increase by 3.8% this year, marking the slowest rate since the Covid<\/a>-19 pandemic in 2020 and approximately 0.4% below the previous forecast, according to the IMF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kenya is on track to overtake Ethiopia as East Africa’s largest economy this year, according to the International…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[2740,29211,29210,51,29207,29208,29209,1700,29205,29206,29204,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-54970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-africas-biggest-economy","10":"tag-africas-richest-country","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-east-africa-economic-growth","13":"tag-east-africas-biggest-economy","14":"tag-east-africas-richest-country","15":"tag-economy","16":"tag-ethiopia-economy","17":"tag-imf-predictions","18":"tag-kenya-economy","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114410422475819868","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}