Economics
Africa Needs at Least a 3-Year Debt Halt to Avert Depression
- A one-year standstill won’t be enough, Ghana’s Ofori-Atta said
- World Bank sees region’s GDP contracting as much as 5.1%
Ghana’s Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
African economies could swing into a depression without a debt moratorium of at least three years, Ghana’s Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta said.
“If we don’t intervene in Africa and manage a way for pushing this debt servicing out for at least three years, are we going to move into a depression and then make the tail of recovery a lot longer than it should be?” Ofori-Atta said Wednesday on a virtual conference organized by the Harvard University Center For African Studies.