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Lesotho

Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Lesotho

Submitted by Preeti Arora on Wed, 2008-12-17 10:07

In the last few years, Lesotho has made significant progress in macroeconomic performance (strong GDP growth, fiscal surplus, current account surplus, and high international reserves). Nevertheless, Lesotho remains exposed to economic developments in South Africa (through the monetary union and the pegged exchange rate) and relies heavily on workers’ remittances, customs revenues from SACU, and royalties for transfer of water to South Africa. 

Lesotho’s vulnerability arises from two main sources: its huge dependence on textile exports to the US and on revenues from SACU (60 percent of total revenues). Firstly, the USA is Lesotho’s largest importer of its manufacturing exports (mainly textiles), and the recession lowered the aggregate demand by US consumers. Secondly, a slowdown in South Africa is likely to have a significant impact on remittances and SACU revenues. The recent large SACU transfers are in fact mostly due to growth in South African imports. Lower South African imports will therefore negatively affect Lesotho’s revenue stream. Similarly, retrenchments in South Africa will lower workers’ remittances towards Lesotho.  

SACU revenues are expected to decline in the next two years, resulting in the current account moving from surplus to deficit. Lesotho’s challenge is to reposition itself to take advantage of its proximity to SA markets, improve the efficiency of public resources, and exploit the potential of non-traditional sectors.

  

How to grow the private sector in Africa

Submitted by Shanta on Mon, 2008-11-10 13:47

I gave the Jerome A.Chazen lecture at Columbia Business School the other day. The gist of my talk was that:

  • Despite relatively rapid economic growth, private investment in Africa is still relatively low
  • The proximate reasons are poor infrastructure, weak skills and a host of policy and institutional impediments (such as business regulations and trade restrictions.
  • Underlying each of these proximate reasons is some government failure. Transport infrastructure, for instance, is constrained by poor regulation that generates monopoly profits for trucking companies but keeps Africa’s transport prices the highest in the world; poor skills derive from nearly dysfunctional tertiary education systems; and many of the regulations are difficult to remove for political reasons. The few private-sector success stories in Africa (Kenya horticulture, Lesotho garments, Rwanda tourism) all got around these government failures; they have not spread economy-wide.
  • The key to enhanced private sector growth in Africa, therefore, is government leadership that removes the underlying obstacles to infrastructure, skills development and entrepreneurship.

There was a lively discussion after the lecture, although I got the impression that most of the audience was broadly sympathetic to my approach. I wonder if the same is true of readers of this blog.

How will the financial crisis affect remittances to Africa?

Submitted by Marilou Uy on Tue, 2008-11-04 11:18

Sub-Saharan Africa received almost $12 billion in remittances in 2007, and that was only the official number. With "informal" flows added the total amount can easily be double that number. Nigeria, Kenya, Sudan, Senegal, Uganda and South Africa received the highest volume of remittances, while in smaller countries such as Lesotho remittances represent up to a quarter of GDP.

Remittance costs are significantly higher for Africa compared to other regions; costs can go up to almost 25% of the amount remitted. Remittances between African countries (from South Africa, for example) are especially expensive. Reducing these costs will mean substantial extra transfers, and this will be a focus of the World Bank’s medium term agenda on the African financial sector. The immediate concern is, however, stability of flows: the recent international credit crisis will lead to a slowdown in remittances. Remittances have generally been counter-cyclical in the past, as they tend to increase when the receiving country experiences adverse events.

But a recession in sending countries could hurt the capacity of migrants to send money home. It is still too early to determine if the latter factor will dominate and cause a decline in the total amount remitted, although there are some disturbing signs. High-frequency data on remittances for African countries are scarce, but available data show that remittances from the US seem to have slowed down in recent months; remittances from other sending countries, however, have not yet been affected.

Since some readers of this blog are senders of remittances, and others recipients, it would be helpful to hear how you see remittances changing  in the current situation.