The IMF welcomed a resilient Ivorian economy this October 3 despite the social and budgetary difficulties that marked the year 2017 and provides “good performance” over the next two years, said Céline Allard at the head of a mission came discuss the fourth review of the three-year economic and financial program supported by the institution.
“Despite the endogenous and exogenous shocks of the year 2017, the Ivorian economy has shown resilience and good economic performance is expected for 2018 and 2019,” the mission said in its statement.
“The performance of the IMF-supported program has been solid in the first half of 2018”, according to the delegation, which states that “all the performance criteria and indicative benchmarks for end-June 2018 have been achieved”. The same is true for the implementation of benchmarks related to “public debt management, monitoring of public enterprises, and fiscal policy and budget administration”.
In addition, the budget deficit that slipped last year as a result of the social crisis is expected to be “at 4% of GDP” in line with the program by the end of the year before “converging towards the deficit standard WAEMU regional budget of 3% of GDP “as early as next year, with the two parties agreeing on” fiscal policy measures for 2019 “.
The issue of indebtedness was also discussed during the discussions with “the need to preserve debt sustainability” while “creating the necessary space” to continue the public investments planned under the National Development Program (2016 -2020) “.
In addition, the mission noted “progress in strengthening the financial sector in the context of the regional transition to new prudential standards aligned with Basel II / III principles and welcomes the recapitalization of a public bank” .
Recall that for 2019, Côte d’Ivoire is banking on a projected budget of 7 334.3 billion FCFA (11.18 billion euros) up 8.6%. And economic growth is expected between 7 and 8% over the next few years.
