Zimbabwe economy to grow by 9.3 pct in 2011 – Biti
Tue Jul 26, 2011 3:34pm GMT
* Agriculture, mining to boost economy
* Inflation seen ending 2011 at 4.0 pct
* Maize harvest to rise
* Biti sees $700 million funding gap
By Nelson Banya and MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE, July 26 (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s economy is on course to grow by 9.3
percent in 2011 due to a recovery in the key mining and agriculture sectors
but wage increases for state workers will be a drag on the public purse,
Finance Minister Tendai Biti said on Tuesday.
The southern African country’s economy grew by 8.1 percent in 2010, after a
sharp contraction for most of the last decade, which critics blamed on
economic mismanagement by the government of President Robert Mugabe.
Biti said political problems in Zimbabwe would stop the country from
registering the double-digit growth needed for a full recovery.
“We are still on course to achieve our GDP growth rate of 9.3 percent.
Agriculture and mining, with 19.3 percent and 44 percent growth
respectively, are at the epicentre of this growth,” Biti said in a half-year
budget review statement.
SINGLE-DIGIT INFLATION
Zimbabwe would achieve a year-end inflation rate of 4.0 percent, lower than
the initial forecast of 4.5 percent. Annual inflation rose to 2.9 percent in
June from 2.5 percent in May.
Annual inflation reached 500 billion at the peak of Zimbabwe’s economic
crisis in December 2008, according to IMF figures.
Mugabe was then forced into a unity government that ditched the local
currency in favour of U.S. dollars and South African rand, bringing
stability to the economy once crushed by hyperinflation.
Resource-rich Zimbabwe has experienced single-digit inflation since 2009.
Also helping to keep inflation in check was higher maize output, which Biti
said would rise to 1.45 million tonnes in the 2010/11 season from 1.32
million tonnes in 2009/10.
The agricultural sector has started to recover after years of food shortages
that were blamed on disruptions caused by Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned
commercial farms for black resettlement.
Biti however warned that the country could run up a $700 million budget
deficit after wage increases for state employees this month as well as
planned grain imports, state welfare programmes and preparations for a
national census in 2012.
He said state wages would now take up 65 percent of budget revenues.
“The net effect of these (salary) increases is that we have basically become
a salaries government. In 2012 we are going to start with a wage bill of $2
billion, we must brace for a long winter of discontent,” Biti said.
The IMF warned in April that Zimbabwe’s budget was skewed by a massive
public wage bill and not enough resources for social programs for the poor
and important infrastructure spending.
Biti said on Tuesday the country would increase revenues from alluvial
diamond sales, freeze recruitment in government departments, weed out 75,000
suspected ghost workers on the state’s payroll, and reform public
enterprises relying on state funding.