"For this year and the medium term, we expect a modest recovery in growth", said Thibault Lemaire, in statements to Lusa at the end of the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings, which took place in Washington until Saturday.

The non-mining sector of this Portuguese-speaking country "should accelerate in 2024, driven by an improvement in the dynamics of the manufacturing industry and construction", pointed out the analyst, stressing that last year the economy presented "mixed results, with the robustness of the mining sector contrasting with the modest growth of the non-mining sector".

For this year, the IMF forecasts growth of 5% for Mozambique, after economic expansion improved to 6% last year, above the 4.4% recorded in 2022.

Mozambique's economic expansion "was driven by the Coral Sul liquefied natural gas project, the country's first large-scale LNG project, however due to restrictive financial conditions, the growth of the mining sector fell short of its potential", the economist told Lusa.

For the IMF, the oil company TotalEnergies should resume work in Cabo Delgado "in the coming months", which will have "a positive and significant impact on growth, tax revenues and the country's current account, after the start of production" and LNG exports.

Mozambique, he concluded, "faces significant development challenges, namely in the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters and climate shocks".

In sub-Saharan Africa, growth is expected to increase from an estimated 3.4% in 2023 to 3.8% in 2024 and 4% in 2025, "with the negative effects of climate shocks continuing and problems in supply chains gradually improving", says the Fund.

Globally, the IMF has improved its global growth forecast by one tenth to 3.2% this year, a rate it also expects for next year.

The institution led by Kristalina Georgieva predicts that global growth, estimated at 3.2% in 2023, will continue at the same pace in 2024 and 2025.

The forecast for 2024 was revised upwards by 0.1 percentage points (pp) compared to the January report and by 0.3 (pp) compared to October last year.

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