Malawi’s chief banker on Monday forecast a leap in economic growth in 2000, fuelled by improved relations with western donors and fiscal belt-tightening by the government of President Bakili Muluzi.
Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi, Matthews Chikaonda, was quoted in news reports as saying he estimated real gross domestic product (GDP) would expand by 6.7 percent in 2000, after coming in at 3.3 percent in 1999. Sustained growth at that level would improve the lives of Malawi’s 10 million people, the majority of whom live below the World Bank poverty threshold of one dollar a day. Chikaonda saw a continued fall in overall inflation, which ended 1999 at 28.3 percent versus 57 percent in 1998.
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