NAIROBI (Reuters) – African economies are expected to grow by an average of 3.4% this year, the African Development Bank said, as the continent recovers from its worst contraction in half a century.
The 54 economies shrank by 2.1% last year, the AfDB said in its 2021 economic outlook report, as the coronavirus crisis disrupted economic activity across the continent.
“The continent-wide projected recovery… does not remove the threat of increasing poverty,” the Abidjan-based AfDB said in the report, published on Friday.
An estimated 39 million Africans are likely to slip into extreme poverty as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the bank said, after 30 million were pushed into that bracket last year. Read more…
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Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and chairman of Saudi Aramco, talks about investing in Uber and Softbank’s Vision Fund, growing the business and how the country is now more open for business. He appears on the latest episode of “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.” This interview was recorded on Feb. 27 in Berlin.
