Report: African economic growth rate to halve amid global crisis; reforms to help rebound

September 12th, 2009 IMF chief: Economic crisis not over yetBERLIN — The global economic crisis isn't over yet, despite positive signals from Europe's biggest economies, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned in comments published Saturday. More work also needs to be done on financial-sector regulation, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was quoted as saying in an interview with German weekly Der Spiegel ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh Sept.

September 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The global economic crisis has encouraged a rash of government reforms that should make it easier to start, run and close businesses around the world, according to a World Bank report released Tuesday night. The annual "Doing Business" survey recorded more regulatory business reforms in more countries than any time since the report began in 2004.

August 31st, 2009 NEW DELHI - India managed a reasonable economic growth of 6.1 percent during the first quarter of the current fiscal despite the global financial crisis impacting manufacturing and services sectors. Country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate during April-June 2009 at 6.1 percent was higher than 5.8 percent in the previous quarter.

August 31st, 2009 UNICEF: Global recession will kill African kidsJOHANNESBURG — The global recession will increase infant and child deaths and cause more students to drop out of school in Africa, the U.N. children's agency predicted Monday, as the financial crisis delivers a delayed blow to the continent and is expected to linger longer.

August 28th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said that India may be able to attain over six per cent growth rate in the current fiscal. "In the last five years, the GDP growth rate was eight per cent.

August 19th, 2009 JOHANNESBURG - The contraction of South Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) by three percent for the second quarter of 2009 indicates the economy is still in recession, BuaNews reported Wednesday citing an expert. Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) a business association, deputy chief executive officer Raymond Parsons said the figure released by the statistics department showed the rate of negative growth in the economy has slowed, but the country is still in a recession.

August 7th, 2009 Clinton urges SAfrica to take leadership roleJOHANNESBURG — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday called on South Africa to take a leading role in driving slumping economies across the world's poorest continent during the worldwide financial crisis.

July 23rd, 2009 East Asia growth may rebound sharply, ADB saysBANGKOK — East Asia's emerging economies could rebound sharply next year with the region already moving from recession to recovery, the Asian Development Bank said Thursday. The deep slumps in the U.S., Europe and Japan will continue to hurt export-dependent East Asia this year but it could expand at a rapid clip in 2010, the development lender said in a semiannual economic report.

July 22nd, 2009 TORONTO - The Bank of Canada, the central bank of the most robust of the G8 economies, has said that global recovery from the financial crisis has begun. In its economic outlook report released Tuesday, the bank said: "There are now increasing signs that economic activity has begun to expand in many countries in response to monetary and fiscal policy stimulus and measures to stabilize the global financial system.

July 10th, 2009 IEA forecasts strong rebound in oil demandPARIS — Global oil demand will rebound 1.7 percent next year as recovery in developing countries helps counter a two-year drop in oil usage sparked by the global recession, the International Energy Agency said Friday. The Paris-based agency predicted Friday in its closely watched monthly survey that global oil demand will increase by 1.4 million barrels a day in 2010 to 85.2 million barrels a day.

June 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Warning that the world is entering an era of slower growth, the World Bank Monday said that without India and China, the developing countries' output would shrink 1.6 percent. But with the two Asian engines of growth included, developing countries are expected to grow by only 1.2 percent this year, after 8.1 percent growth in 2007 and 5.9 percent growth in 2008.

June 19th, 2009 LONDON - The Chinese economy, hit very severely by the global economic crisis, could dip one more time if the government does not roll out structural reforms that would seek to curb 20 years of excessive dependence on exports, a leading Chinese economist has warned. Delivering a speech at the London School of Economics Thursday, Yu Yongding, director general of the Institute of World Economy and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also warned that two decades of investment-driven growth strategy had led to serious problems with over-capacity.

June 1st, 2009 KOLKATA - The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Monday conceded that the country's annual growth rate of 6.7 percent has raised hope but cautioned that it did not indicate the Indian economy was strong. "The (United Progressive Alliance) government had repeatedly said that the economic growth will be 7.1 percent.

May 12th, 2009 Bank of Korea keeps key interest rate at 2 percentSEOUL, South Korea — South Korea's central bank left its key interest rate unchanged Tuesday at a record low for a third straight month amid signs the country's slumping economy is improving. The Bank of Korea kept the benchmark seven-day repurchase rate at 2 percent at a regular monthly policy meeting.

March 5th, 2009 NEW DELHI - With the economic growth rate for the third quarter falling to 5.3 percent - the lowest since 2003 - the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Wednesday evening announced monetary stimulus in the form of reductions in the repo rate and the reverse repo rate by 50 basis points each. The repo rate (rate at which banks borrow money from RBI), which was last revised Jan 2, will now come down to 5 percent, while the reverse repo rate (rate at which RBI borrows from the banks) has come down to 3.5 percent.