IMF ups I.Coast 2013 growth forecast to 8 pct

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund sees economic growth in top cocoa grower Ivory Coast reaching 8 percent in 2013, up from a previous forecast of 7 percent, a senior Fund official said on Wednesday.

The West African state is in the midst of an economic revival after a brief civil war in 2011 that closed the book on a decade of political turmoil that hobbled growth.

"In 2013 our (growth) figure is 8 percent," Michel Lazare, who headed a two-week evaluation mission to the nation, told a news conference in the commercial capital Abidjan.

"The macro-economic perspectives for 2013 are favourable, with a growth rate that will remain vigorous and inflation under control. With substantial external financial support, public investment will top 7 percent of GDP in accordance with the national development plan for 2012-2015," he said.

The revised growth projection outstrips analyst expectations. The median from a Reuters poll of 11 analysts taken earlier this month forecast gross domestic product growth of 7.5 percent in 2013.

Both the IMF and Ivory Coast also revised higher their estimates for economic growth recorded in 2012, pegging it at 9.8 percent.

"The GDP growth rate was 9.8 percent, compared to a previous estimate of 8.6 percent in September 2012," Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan, who also holds the economy and finance portfolios, told the news conference.

Last July, the Ivorian government predicted growth of 8.2 percent in 2012 and 9 percent in 2013 before reaching double digits the following year.

Once the economic motor of French-speaking West Africa, Ivory Coast's government is pushing for heavy investment to renew crumbling infrastructure and boost power production.

It is also seeking to profit from mineral reserves left unexploited for decades as the country concentrated on developing agricultural commodities.

The IMF's Lazare praised Ivory Coast for regularising its debt and for keeping consumer price increases in check.

"Ivory Coast regularised its external debt for the first time in nearly 30 years with the HIPC completion point and agreements with its commercial lenders."

"The macro-economic perspectives in 2012 were better than expected with a GDP growth rate of 9.8 percent. Inflation was 1.3 percent in 2013," he said.

Ivory Coast defaulted on a 2032 Eurobond in early 2011, during the civil war. That bond was itself composed of restructured defaulted debt dating back to 2000.

It then received more than $4 billion in debt relief last June under the IMF-World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) scheme, enabling it to resume paying coupons on the defaulted bond.

Ivory Coast has since announced plans to issue $1.2 billion worth of domestic debt in 2013.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/imf-ups-coast-2013-growth-forecast-8-pct-063229391--business.html

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