The consulting firm BMI Research yesterday revised its growth forecast for the Mozambican economy down to 3.6 percent for this and next year, against its 4.6 percent February projection.

“We continue to believe that the Mozambican economy has already passed the worst phase of the slowdown following the revelations about the hidden debt and the subsequent suspension of international support,” the analysts say, now setting last year’s growth at 3.3 percent, slightly lower than the forecast for this and next year.

“We expect growth to be below the long-term seven percent average registered between 2000 and 2015 in the next two years, when donors will continue to withhold funding and the Government will remain virtually excluded from financial credit markets, leading to constraints,” analysts at the Fitch rating agency consultancy write.

“In addition, despite the fact that the mining sector continues to face upcoming winds of growth, coal production increases will slow down against 2017, which means that these winds will be less pronounced than in recent years,” the analysis note to which Lusa has had access adds.

The comment on the Mozambican economy comes less than a month after another analysis on the possible return of Mozambique’s international donors, where analysts said they did not anticipate new foreign aid in the near future.

“The Mozambican government will continue to cut investments in the coming quarters to try to cope with the budgetary pressure arising from the withdrawal of international support,” Fitch analysts wrote in February.

Experts are convinced that “there is little chance that foreign creditors and donors will return in 2018 and, with the country having elections this year and national elections in 2019, current spending is unlikely to be reduced”.

For these analysts, the Mozambican economy has “emerged from the worst of the crisis that followed the ‘hidden debt’ revelations”, and gross domestic product will accelerate due to the fall in inflation, which in turn “will boost internal demand and contribute to economic activity, which will also benefit from private investments in infrastructure and coal production”.

-Lusa