The World Bank is forecasting that gross domestic product in South Africa could slump by between 6.9 percentage points and 8 percentage points in 2020 when compared with a base case that does not include the anticipated economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. Similar contractions are expected for the region’s two other largest economies, Nigeria and Angola. The bank is also forecasting that growth across sub-Saharan Africa will fall sharply to between -2.1% and -5.1% in 2020, from and expansion of 2.4% in 2019, and plunge the region into its first recession in 25 years.
