Economy

BMI View: We forecast real GDP growth to be 7.6% in 2011 up from 3.4% in 2010. A key driver of this rapid economic expansion will be elevated export revenues - especially oil and diamonds.

BMI View: The rebound in diamond export revenues will help sustain Namibia's growth in the years ahead. Indeed, we expect that exports will experience double-digit growth rates in... 2011-07-25

BMI View: Following the South African Reserve Bank's July 21 meeting, we now see the central bank keeping rates on hold through to the end of the year - previously, we expected a... 2011-07-22

BMI View: The South African rand has underperformed several of its Emerging Market peers over the past six months. Weakening sentiment towards South Africa amid the ongoing spate of... 2011-07-22

BMI View: We forecast Botswana's current account to record a surplus in 2012, after having posted a deficit for the past three years. The pertinent factors causing this turnaround... 2011-07-07

The technical picture for the South African rand is uninspiring at present. The currency is comfortably within key support at ZAR6.9000/US$ and key resistance at ZAR6.5400US$, and unless... 2011-07-06

BMI View: Angola's strong growth rate has kept inflation quite high compared to other southern African nations. We expect that this will continue in 2011, with average annual price... 2011-06-28

BMI View: Price growth has hovered around 9.0% since the beginning of 2011. We expect this to remain stable at about this level, and we are forecasting average annual inflation of... 2011-06-28

BMI View: Headline CPI came in at 4.2% year-on-year (y-o-y) in April, only marginally up from 4.1% in March. Our core view sees inflation edging up gradually over the second half of... 2011-06-27

BMI View: The recent public sector strike in Botswana has caused significant economic disruption, lowering our headline real GDP growth forecast from 5.1% to 4.8% for 2011. This... 2011-06-27