In its 19th year, the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit brought together women leaders from a variety of industries to discuss the opportunities and pitfalls for companies seeking to grow in a fast-paced business environment. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Recent comments by U.S. President Donald Trump have raised fears that NAFTA, the 2-decades-old trade pact between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, may be on its last legs. Proponents of NAFTA warn that scrapping the three-nation deal could cause economic shocks around the globe. But others say that’s just a case of corporate fear mongering. Mil Arcega has more.
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Disaster-prone countries that keep rebuilding homes, roads and utilities are in danger of becoming uninsurable unless their new infrastructure is built to survive further catastrophe, experts said Friday at a World Bank conference.

New construction must be low in carbon emissions and built on safe land at less risk of destruction as extreme weather intensifies under global warming, they said.

More infrastructure is about to be built in the next 20 years than was built in the past 2,000 years, said experts at the World Bank conference on infrastructure and resilience held in Washington.

The total cost of that infrastructure is seen at some $5 trillion a year.

“The expense of a constant construct, reconstruct, reconstruct, frankly, no country can afford,” said Christiana Figueres, former United Nations’ climate chief.

“Because we know we will be getting more of these effects, we cannot let ourselves get to a scenario where we are systemically uninsurable,” said Figueres.

Among recent disaster losses, no more than half were covered by insurance, she said.

Extreme weather such as flooding, severe storms and drought is increasing with global warming, experts say.

Mapping risky areas and determining the cost of making infrastructure resilient must be done before rebuilding, said Figueres.

She estimated the cost of making low-carbon infrastructure that can withstand shocks might be an additional 10 percent.

Although governments are increasingly aware of the need for resilient infrastructure, residents need incentive and encouragement to rebuild wisely, said Kamal Kishore, member of India’s National Disaster Management Authority.

“If you have a bridge across the River Ganges and you stop it for a day … the economic impact is huge,” he said. “We really have to make the case of life-cycle costs and benefits, not just the upfront costs of infrastructure.”

India has made considerable progress in reducing deaths from cyclones due to a combination of resilient infrastructure, community networks and scientific advances, he said.

Data indicating possible risk must be easily available to ensure infrastructure is not built on land prone to floods or other disasters, said Aris Papadopoulos, former chief executive of cement company Titan America. Papadopoulos recently set up a private-sector risk reduction network with the U.N.’s Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

“We build in vulnerable locations to the same standards as were built in the safer location, and what’s the result? We have disaster,” he said.

Urging a modern-day Marshall Plan to rebuild the Caribbean devastated by recent hurricanes, British businessman Richard Branson said the islands need more hurricane-proof homes and stronger electricity systems.

The original Marshall Plan was a multibillion-dollar U.S. program that helped rebuild Western European after World War II.

Cutting dependency on costly fossil fuels and switching to solar or wind energy would free up resources for islands that spend as much as a quarter of their national expenditures on fuel, said Branson.

Branson is trying to set up a fund to help Caribbean nations replace fossil fuel-dependent utilities with low-carbon renewable energy sources.

“How much more destruction is needed to show that the way we treat our planet is having serious consequences and sadly will have even more serious consequences?” he asked.
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The euro zone economy may be building up an impressive head of steam that shows no signs of cooling, but what policymakers at the European Central Bank really want – higher inflation – is still largely absent.

Industrial output in the bloc rose faster than anyone polled by Reuters expected in August, according to data on Thursday which followed a slew of forecast-beating releases and after the International Monetary Fund upgraded its outlook for global growth.

“Although the industrial sector only accounts for a quarter of GDP it has been the euro zone’s most cyclical sector historically, and so is an important indicator of the economy’s wider health,” said Christian Jaccarini at CEBR.

“With the economy gathering momentum, the European Central Bank should feel confident about starting to taper its asset purchase program at the beginning of next year.”

The economy is performing stronger than at any time since the global financial crisis so speculation the ECB will soon begin scaling back its massive stimulus program has been rife.

Policymakers at the Bank will announce on Oct. 26 a six-month extension to its asset purchase program but will cut how much it buys each month to 40 billion euros from January, a September Reuters poll predicted.  

Five people with direct knowledge of discussions told Reuters the ECB is homing in on extending its stimulus for nine months at the next meeting while scaling it back.

Yet the ECB’s key focus is inflation and numbers due on Tuesday will probably confirm prices only rose 1.5 percent in September on a year ago, still a lot weaker than the just below 2 percent rate-setters would like.

According to Reuters polls taken throughout 2017, which have been correct about how low it would remain this year, inflation won’t hit that ECB target for years.

“There is likely to be only a limited pick-up in inflationary pressures, meaning that interest rate hikes can be kept on hold until 2019 – later than markets seem to expect,” economists at Capital Economics wrote.

British dilemma

Across the Atlantic, U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers have already begun tightening but had a prolonged debate about the prospects of a pickup in inflation and slowing the path of future interest rate rises if it did not, according to minutes of the central bank’s last policy meeting.

“Many participants expressed concern that the low inflation readings this year might reflect… the influence of developments that could prove more persistent, and it was noted that some patience in removing policy accommodation while assessing trends in inflation was warranted,” the Fed said in the minutes.

Britain, however, has the opposite problem.

Since the vote in June 2016 to leave the European Union, the pound has lost around 13 percent of its value against the dollar, driving up the costs of imports and caused inflation to run well above the 2 percent the Bank of England would like it at.

In the referendum’s aftermath the Bank cut 25 basis points from borrowing costs, taking them to a record low 0.25 percent, hoping to stave off a predicted economic meltdown after the leave vote.

That meltdown never happened and Britain’s economy was one of the best performers last year although growth has since slowed sharply.

Still, at its November meeting the BoE will raise interest rates for the first time in a decade, according to economists in a recent Reuters poll taken after a barrage of hawkish rhetoric from BoE policymakers. However, most of them also said raising rates now would be a policy mistake.  

“On the strength of the MPC’s rhetoric and current market expectations, we continue to look for a November hike. But this assumes no significant downside surprises in the inflation and wage data next week,” said Allan Monks at JPMorgan.

“If the MPC is minded to back out of tightening in November – in response to the data or the Brexit process – we would expect at least some hint of this in any commentary between now and the next meeting on Nov. 2.”

Britain’s economy shows little sign of breaking out of its lethargy and it is “extraordinary” the BoE is considering raising interest rates, the British Chambers of Commerce said on Friday.

“We’d caution against an earlier than required tightening in monetary policy, which could hit both business and consumer confidence and weaken overall UK growth,” said Suren Thiru, BCC head of economics.

Divorce talks have this week ended in deadlock over a British refusal to clarify how much it will pay on leaving, EU negotiator Michel Barnier said on Thursday.

But EU leaders could hand beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May an olive branch in Brexit negotiations next week by launching their own internal preparations for a transition to a new relationship with Britain, giving her some hope.

 
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China’s imports from North Korea fell 37.9 percent in September from a year earlier, marking the seventh consecutive month of decline, the customs office said Friday.

China-U.S. ties have been strained by President Donald Trump’s criticism of China’s trade practices and by demands that Beijing do more to pressure North Korea over Pyongyan’s nuclear and missile programmes.

China’s exports to North Korea in September dropped 6.7 percent from a year ago, a spokesman for the General Administration of Customs told a briefing, adding no seafood imports from North Korea were recorded last month.

China’s imports from North Korea fell 16.7 percent on-year to $1.48 billion in Jannuary-September, while exports to North Korea rose 20.9 percent to $2.55 billion in the same period.

That created a trade surplus with North Korea at $1.07 billion in the first nine months of this year.
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The wildfires burning through Northern California are sending visitors packing, threatening the $2 billion-plus spent annually by tourists on wine tours, fine food, limousine rides and much more, business leaders said.

At the Inn on First bed and breakfast in the famous wine town of Napa, co-owner Jamie Cherry was encouraging callers to postpone rather than cancel visits, as wildfires burned largely unchecked across the region.

“People are canceling as far as November already,” Cherry said. “It’s going to be devastating in terms of financial loss for everybody.”

The fast-moving fires have killed at least 26 people and left hundreds missing in an area less than an hour’s drive from San Francisco.

With hundreds of wineries, expensive restaurants and bucolic rolling scenery, the wine country of Sonoma and Napa counties is a major draw for visitors. Limousines and buses clog parking lots at weekends as visitors sip Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignons in towns known for their mix of rural and cosmopolitan vibes.

Now, with at least 13 burned wineries, shuttered tasting rooms and thick smoke in the air from nearly two dozen fires that have charred more than 190,000 acres across the state, it is unclear how quickly the region can lure back tourists.

‘We’d go back’

Napa Valley welcomed 3.5 million visitors last year, with overnight guests spending on average $402 per day, according to Visit Napa Valley, the region’s tourism marketing group.

“There is a good amount of infrastructure that has burned down, homes have burned down, wineries have burned. There are restaurants that are not going to open quickly,” said Clay Gregory of Visit Napa Valley.

On Thursday, tasting rooms remained closed and the famous Napa Valley Wine Train, which ferries tourists through the vineyards, said it planned to reopen Sunday.

Dozens of limousines and tour buses, their polish dulled by a film of ash, sat in a parking lot and warehouse on the outskirts of Napa. The company’s owner, Michael Graham, said the business had just hit peak demand of 100 reservations a day, but since the fires that had slumped to two.

Graham remains hopeful, however, citing tourism’s quick recovery after the 6.0 earthquake that hit Napa in 2014: “People were out wine-tasting the same day.”

Graham said the region was still largely intact, with vast swathes of countryside untouched by fire.

“It’s just smoky. As soon as they get this contained it will be back to business as usual,” he said.

Others agreed the effect of the fires on tourism would be short-lived.

Roseanne Rosen has fond memories of the trip with her husband to wine country that she just finished ahead of the fires. The couple from Kansas City has been coming for the last decade and has no plans to abandon that tradition.

“It’s one of our favorite destinations and I don’t see that changing,” Rosen said by telephone. “Once people are open and ready for business, we’d go back in an instant.”
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The government of Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said Thursday that it will request special powers to legislate economic policies from the opposition-ruled Congress, after growth slowed sharply during his first year in office.

During a presentation in Congress, Prime Minister Mercedes Araoz said her cabinet wants to legislate policies aimed at consolidating an incipient economic recovery and making Peru a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a wealthy-country think tank.

In Peru, Congress traditionally grants legislative powers to the executive branch at the start of a president’s term, and it is rare for a prime minister to seek them so far into an administration – underscoring ongoing worries about the economy.

Growth in Peru, one of the region’s most robust economies, faltered early this year after a corruption scandal halted public work projects and severe flooding destroyed billions of dollars in infrastructure.

The government and central bank now expect the economy to grow by about 2.8 percent this year thanks to better prices for Peru’s key copper exports, down from 3.9 percent last year.

Araoz said the economy should expand by at least 4 percent in coming years.

It was unclear whether the opposition would grant the government its request for new legislative powers following a political crisis in September that ended with Congress ousting Kuczynski’s former cabinet.

Kuczynski appointed a more socially conservative cabinet led by Araoz that won initial praise from the right-wing populist party Popular Force, which has an absolute majority in Congress.

But Congress must approve the new cabinet with a vote of confidence scheduled for Thursday.

Araoz said that she would present the request for legislative powers in coming days.

Congress gave Kuczynski legislative authority on economic policies in September 2016, which his government used to pass laws aimed at reducing and expediting bureaucratic permits.
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The European Union’s Brexit negotiator said Thursday that that little progress was made with the U.K. in a fifth round of talks on the country’s departure from the EU in 2019, and that he cannot yet recommend broadening negotiations to include trade.

Michel Barnier said that despite the “constructive spirit” shown in this week’s negotiations in Brussels, “we haven’t made any great steps forward.” On the question of how much Britain has to pay to settle its financial commitments, he said: “We have reached a state of deadlock, which is disturbing.”

Barnier said he would not be able to recommend to EU leaders meeting next week that “sufficient progress” has been made to broaden the talks to future EU-British relations like trade.

The leaders meet in Brussels on Oct. 19-20, and it had been hoped they would agree to widen the talks.

The EU says this can only happen when there has been progress on the issues of the financial settlement, the rights of citizens affected by Brexit and the status of the Northern Ireland-Ireland border.

But Britain says these issues are closely intertwined with their future relations like trade and must be discussed together.

“I hope the member states will see the progress we have made and take a step forward” next week, British Brexit envoy David Davis told reporters.

“We would like them to give Michel the means to broaden the negotiations. It’s up to them whether they do it. Clearly I think it’s in the interests of the United Kingdom and the European Union that they do,” Davis said.

Barnier said the two sides would work to achieve “sufficient progress” in time for a subsequent meeting of EU leaders in December.

Britain must leave the EU on March 29, 2019, but the negotiations must be completed within about a year to leave time for EU states’ national parliaments to ratify the Brexit agreement.

Barnier reaffirmed that parting with “no deal will be a very bad deal.”

“To be clear, on our side, we will be ready to face any eventualities, and all the eventualities,” he said.
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China has a new richest man, according to the annual Hurun rich list of the country’s top movers and shakers.

Xu Jiayin, the chairman of developer China Evergrande Group, has seized top spot – beating out more familiar faces such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Jack Ma and rival property magnate Wang Jianlin of Dalian Wanda Group.

Xu’s reported $43 billion wealth – a gain of around $30 billion against last year – comes on the back of a surge in Evergrande’s shares, up over 450 percent so far this year amid plans to cut debt and focus on profit over scale.

The Hurun Report, established in 1999, is the leading China-based organization ranking the wealth of the country’s rich and famous, and its list gives a temperature check on the winners and losers in China.

Growth in China stabilized this year, but while the world’s second largest economy averted a hard landing, some major corporations have buckled under the weight of their debt or been sanctioned by authorities over risky investments overseas.

Wanda’s Wang – who took top spot for the last two years – dropped to fifth in the list after Wanda sold off much of the firm’s hotel and theme park assets to rivals in July, after coming under regulatory scrutiny over its high leverage.

Close behind Evergrande’s Xu were China’s top tech titans – Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Tencent Holdings Ltd’s Pony Ma, who has seen his firm’s value rise on the popularity of its WeChat messaging app and its popular online games.

The list also underlined those who have fallen from grace in corporate China.

Jia Yueting, founder of sprawling conglomerate LeEco that once looked to rival both Tesla Inc and Netflix, dropped to 1,978th place from 31st last year.

Yang Kai, chairman of embattled Huishan Dairy – 66th last year – dropped off the list entirely as his firm fights off creditors amid billions of dollars of unpaid debt.

On the up was Wuxi Pharma Tech’s Li Ge and his wife, propelled by China’s push towards drug innovation, Zhang Lei of fast-growing online news portal Toutiao and Li Shufu of carmaker Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd.

“It has been a good year for manufacturing, cars, education, TMT and healthcare,” Hurun founder Rupert Hoogewerf said.

While many of those on the 2,000-strong list were members of the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, only a few were delegates at the upcoming five-yearly Party Congress that begins next week.

These included corn magnate Li Denghai, alcohol billionaire Wu Shaoxun and Pan Gang of dairy giant Yili.

The list, with a combined wealth of $2.6 trillion, saw average wealth rising 12.5 percent – faster than broader economic growth – pointing to the growing financial muscle of China’s super-rich elite.
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Національний банк України дозволив купівлю і перерахування валюти для розміщення за межами України гарантійного депозиту на рахунках міжнародних платіжних систем. Про це йдеться в повідомленні на сайті банку.

«Національний банк продовжує лібералізацію валютного регулювання шляхом поступового пом’якшення обмежень на валютному ринку», – повідомив регулятор.

Згідно з повідомленням, рішення стосується як банків, так і небанківських фінансових установ.

«Це кошти, які мають використовуватись для забезпечення зобов’язань під час здійснення переказів за кордон. Раніше можливість переказу коштів для розміщення гарантійного депозиту для забезпечення транзакцій мали лише банківські установи-учасники міжнародних платіжних систем», – додали в НБУ.

Від 5 жовтня НБУ дозволив українським банкам здійснювати купівлю чи перерахування валюти за кордон за спрощеною процедурою. 

У серпні цього року Національний банк скасував обмеження на видачу грошей з банківських рахунків, зокрема валюту. Тоді НБУ дозволив фізичним особам знімати готівку у валюті з рахунків через каси і банкомати без обмежень, хоча раніше діяв ліміт на зняття одним клієнтом на добу суми не більшої ніж 250 тисяч гривень.
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The Trump administration says coal is back and nuclear energy is cool. Not at the expense of natural gas, wind and solar, insists an unusual coalition of business and environmental groups.

Dow Chemical, Koch Industries and U.S. Steel Corp. are standing with environmentalists in opposing an Energy Department plan that would reward nuclear and coal-fired power plants for adding reliability to the nation’s power grid and are pressuring the administration to shift course.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry says the plan is needed to help prevent widespread outages such as those caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and a 2014 “polar vortex” in the Eastern and Central U.S. The plan aims to reverse a steady tide of retirements of coal and nuclear plants, which have lost market share as natural gas and renewable energy flourish.

“The continued loss of baseload generation … such as coal and nuclear must be stopped,” Perry wrote in a Sept. 28 letter urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to adopt the new rule. “These generation resources are necessary to maintain the resiliency of the electric grid” amid sharp shifts in the U.S. energy market.

Perry’s plan coincides with President Donald Trump’s vow to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” while ending what he and other Republicans call a “war on coal” waged by the Obama administration. Perry, who has said he wants to “make nuclear energy cool again,” is certain to face questions about the plan and the opposition at a congressional hearing Thursday.

Critics see a bailout

The plan would compensate power plant owners that maintain a 90-day fuel supply protected against the elements. Critics say it could result in subsidies worth billions of dollars.

Environmental groups say the plan would boost dirty fuels and harm consumers, while the energy industry warns about interference in the free market and manufacturers complain about higher energy prices that could be passed on to consumers.

“Rick Perry is trying to slam through an outrageous bailout of the coal and nuclear industries on the backs of American consumers,” said Kit Kennedy, an energy policy expert for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This radical proposal would lead to higher energy bills for consumers and businesses, as well as dirtier air and increased health problems.”

A coalition of industry groups, ranging from the American Council on Renewable Energy to the American Petroleum Institute and the Natural Gas Supply Association, also blasted the plan, saying it could harm “entire industries and their tens of thousands workers.”

Amy Farrell, senior vice president of the American Wind Energy Association, said the proposal could “upend competitive markets that save consumers billions of dollars a year.”

Oil, gas: Let markets work

Marty Durbin, executive vice president of the petroleum institute, the top lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, said officials “need to be careful that government doesn’t put its thumb on the scale” in energy markets. “It’s better to let markets choose, which is what the United States is seeing with the growth of natural gas” as the leading U.S. electricity source, Durbin said.

The Industrial Energy Consumers of America, a trade group that represents Dow, Koch Industries and other manufacturing giants, is among those lobbying against the plan. In a letter to Congress, the group called the proposal “anti-competitive” and said it could distort or “destroy competitive wholesale electricity markets, increase the price of electricity to all consumers” and harm U.S. manufacturing.

The manufacturers and other critics say there is no evidence of a threat to the grid’s day-to-day reliability that would justify the emergency action Perry is seeking.

Indeed, in a report commissioned by Perry and delivered in August, the Energy Department said “reliability is adequate today despite the retirement of 11 percent of the generating capacity available in 2002, as significant additions from natural gas, wind, and solar have come online since then.”

Gerry Cauley, CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., an international regulatory authority, said at a conference in June that “the state of reliability in North America remains strong, and the trend line shows continuing improvement year over year.”

Coal, nuclear groups hail plan

Even so, coal and nuclear groups hailed the plan. National Mining Association President and CEO Hal Quinn called Perry’s action “a long-overdue and necessary step to address the vulnerability of America’s energy grid,” while Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said disruptions caused by hurricanes and other extreme weather events show that “the urgency to act in support of the resiliency of the electric grid has never been clearer.”

The Energy Department seeks final action by mid-December, although industry groups and some members of Congress have pushed for a delay.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said the energy commission should reject Perry’s plan.

“Secretary Perry has embraced an obsolete view of the grid (that) would bail out coal and nuclear power plants at the expense everyone else,” she said.
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Over the past few years, Chinese companies have flooded the globe with investments, buying up everything from real estate to football clubs and entertainment companies. As a result, hundreds of billions of dollars in capital have flowed out of the country, draining China’s foreign exchange reserves. But that all has come to a halt this year with the Communist Party beginning to label such high-profile transactions a “national security” risk and bringing some of the country’s biggest dealmakers under scrutiny.

The first in a series of shockwaves came in January, when Xiao Jianhua, an eccentric and politically connected wealthy Chinese billionaire, was seized from his residence at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong by Chinese authorities.

When Xiao was taken away, reports suggested that he was helping Chinese authorities with an investigation into the country’s massive stock market crash of 2015 that saw stocks lose some $4 trillion in value.

But, it is Xiao’s reported ability to secretly move massive amounts of money and his political connections that most have focused on. In an earlier report, China analyst Willy Lam told VOA that Xiao is known as a “white glove” — a broker for powerful political families that include those with ties to former President Jiang Zemin.

The New York Times has described Xiao as a “banker for the ruling class and in 2013, the newspaper reported that he paid $2.4 million to buy shares in an investment firm held by the sister and brother-in-law of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Xiao’s legal status is unclear and while he is believed to be helping authorities in China with investigations into the financial industry, authorities have made no formal statement about whether he is in custody.

A few months later, as the Communist Party, accompanied by state media, continued to hone its message about the financial risks of heavily-leveraged debt, and overseas investments started to slow dramatically, another jolt occurred with the detention of Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of Chinese financial and insurance giant Anbang.

One of China’s richest and most powerful companies, Anbang is known for its headline-grabbing overseas investments such as its purchase of New York’s iconic Waldorf Astoria Hotel and Manhattan’s JW Marriott Essex House Hotel — and ones that failed — like its $14 billion bid to purchase Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide.

Anbang chairman Wu Xiaohui is married to Zhuo Ran, the granddaughter of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. In a statement shortly after he was detained in early June, Anbang said Wu was temporarily stepping aside as chairman for “personal reasons.” Wu has not been seen in public since June.

Soon after Wu’s detention came a second and even broader shock, the ripples of which continue to be felt. News surfaced that China’s banking regulator was scrutinizing the investment and loan guarantees used to back the big overseas investments of not only Anbang, but other big dealmakers including HNA Group, Dalian Wanda Group and Fosun, whose chairman dubs himself the Warren Buffett of China.

Many of the companies, such as Dalian Wanda, have become the international face of China with their marquee acquisitions in recent years. Dalian’s shopping spree alone has been dazzling. Over the past two years, the company’s purchases have included the world’s largest cinema chain, a luxury yacht builder, a Spanish football club as well as Hollywood’s Legendary Entertainment media company.

So far, the heads of the four other companies appear to have avoided anything beyond scrutiny, and calls to sell off their assets overseas, but there are no signs that the pressure is easing.

When rumors surfaced online in early August that police detained Dalian Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin as he was about to leave China via private jet for London, the company had to work hard to stamp out the speculation.

The company called the accusations “groundless,” and noted that Wang was in China’s western province of Lanzhou.

Since his company came under scrutiny, Wang moved quickly and in July sold off 77 hotels and 13 theme parks to pay off nearly $10 billion in debt. Still, some continue to believe that he has been barred from leaving the country. In early September, Wang traveled to Hong Kong where he met with the port city’s former chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa. Pictures from the visit were posted on Dalian Wanda’s website.

According to Bloomberg, China has asked Anbang to sell its assets outside of the country. For now, the company says it has no plans to sell its overseas acquisitions.

 
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 Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be 2.4 percent in 2017, the World Bank said on Wednesday, down from the 2.6 percent projected in April.

It said the downgrade was due to a number of reasons, including Nigeria’s failing to meet expectations but also broader conditions.

“Regional per capita output growth is forecast to be negative for the second consecutive year, while investment growth remains low, and productivity growth is falling,” it said.

Growth across the region, however, was seen rising 3.2 percent in 2018 and 3.5 percent in 2019, forecasts unchanged from earlier this year.

In its latest Africa Pulse report, the Bank said the region would be helped by better commodity prices. Sub-Saharan African economies have been hit by lower commodity prices which slowed growth in the last few years, cutting government revenues.

Albert Zeufack, World Bank chief economist for Africa, said the region’s growth recovery would partly be driven by the continent’s two largest economies — Nigeria and South Africa — exiting recession.

He said the two countries need “deeper reforms” to get back to pre-2014 levels of growth and their political uncertainty needs to be reined in. He said they make up about half of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP growth.

The World Bank said Nigeria’s economy, the largest in the continent, was expected to expand by 1 percent in 2017.

South Africa’s economy, hit by political worries, was expected to grow just 0.6 percent this year.
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