Select Page

TIPEEG shores up economy`

The Targeted Intervention Programme for Employment and Economic Growth (TIPEEG) helped shore up the local economy last year resulting in an estimated 4.9% growth in GDP beating government’s expectations of 4.2%, according to preliminary estimates released by the Namibia Statistics Agency this week.
Although the latest figures managed to beat expectations, this should however be seen against a growth of 6.6% registered in 2010.
The construction sector lead the growth last year expanding by an estimated 16.1% in real value added. This was mainly due to a substantial increase in the number of construction projects carried out in the electricity and water sectors as well as general government construction activities. This investment originated in the capital budget and is a result of  the government’s expansionary fiscal policy to stimulate economic activities.
An accommodative monetary policy stance by the central bank in which the repo rate has been left at 6% since 2010 also saw residential and commercial building activities contributing to the construction boom as the value of buildings completed increased by 21.7%.
The agricultural sector was the second biggest contributor to growth after increasing by 8.6% during 2011 compared to a decline of 2.7% in 2010. The increase came from growth recorded in livestock farming and crop farming that registered growths of 7.8% and 11.2% respectively.
The manufacturing sector registered the lowest growth with a marginal increase of 1.3% compared to 10.8% the previous year while the primary industries recorded a marginal decline of 0.9%. The decline was primarily owed to the mining and quarrying sectors that experienced an 8.5% decline  in mineral production especially in the diamond and mining subsectors.
Economic growth for 2009 has been revised to -1.1% from -0.7% that was earlier announced.
Final GDP figures for 2011 are expected in August.

About The Author