Great Recession in Africa

As a direct result of the late 2000s recession, some economies in Africa have been primarily affected by reduced global demand and lower prices of commodities such as oil, platinum, nickel, gold, and copper. South Africa was the first African country to fall in recession. Other countries like Morocco and Egypt, which benefited from their previous high economic growth experienced a great decline due to the global economic crisis without falling in recession.

Moody's Investors Service warned on July 7, 2008 that South Africa could slip into a recession by the turn of the year. Moody's cited electricity shortages, high interest rates, soaring inflation, a slumping housing and vehicle market and lower business and consumer confidence indicators. Growth in South Africa's real gross domestic product for the first quarter of 2008 slowed to 0.39%. CPIX inflation, the monetary-policy inflation target measure, rose 10.9% on a year-on-year basis in May, its highest level since November 2002. South Africa's National Treasury criticized the statement by Moody's saying, "It's not possible that we'll end up in recession." He added that the government may revise lower its 4 percent growth forecast for the year following growth of 5.1% in 2007. Car sales in South Africa dropped an annual 22 percent in June due to higher interest rates.

The table below displays all national recessions appearing in 2006-2013 (for the 71 countries with available data), according to the common recession definition, saying that a recession occurred whenever seasonally adjusted real GDP contracts quarter on quarter, through minimum two consecutive quarters. Only 11 out of the 71 listed countries with quarterly GDP data (Poland, Slovakia, Moldova, India, China, South Korea, Indonesia, Australia, Uruguay, Colombia and Bolivia) escaped a recession in this time period.

The few recessions appearing early in 2006-07 are commonly never associated to be part of the Great Recession, which is illustrated by the fact that only two countries (Iceland and Jamaica) were in recession in Q4-2007.

One year before the maximum, in Q1-2008, only six countries were in recession (Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Portugal and New Zealand). The number of countries in recession was 25 in Q2‑2008, 39 in Q3‑2008 and 53 in Q4‑2008. At the steepest part of the Great Recession in Q1‑2009, a total of 59 out of 71 countries were simultaneously in recession. The number of countries in recession was 37 in Q2‑2009, 13 in Q3‑2009 and 11 in Q4‑2009. One year after the maximum, in Q1‑2010, only seven countries were in recession (Greece, Croatia, Romania, Iceland, Jamaica, Venezuela and Belize).

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