GDP below 5 percent in 2001

The Namibian economy is likely to see a second year of low growth, with its performance in 2001 likely to remain below 5 percent.

“The near-term prospects for economic growth are not very bright ... GDP (gross domestic product) for the present year (2000) will not be significantly different from last year’s rate of about 3 percent,” Tom Alweendo, governor of Namibia’s central bank said on Monday. Alweendo said economic growth since 1994 had been too low to create sufficient jobs in a country where the labour force has grown at an average rate of 3 percent annually.

Namibia’s GDP grew at an average of 3.8 percent between 1995 and 1999, against government expectations of a 5 percent growth set in its five year economic development blueprint. Real income per capita in the country of nearly two million people has reportedly fallen since independence in 1990. An estimated 40 percent of Namibia’s economically active population is unemployed.