By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 14 November 2013:
The Libyan economy is forecast to contract by 5.1 percent in 2013 . . .[restrict]due to the disruptions in oil production, the IMF re-confirmed this week.
This contraction comes after a 104.5 percent growth in 2012, and an IMF forecast of 25.5 percent growth for 2014 and an 8.4 percent growth in 2018.
|
LIBYA |
2012 |
2013 |
2014* |
2018* |
|
Real GDP (Annual percentage change) |
104.5 |
-5.1 |
25.5 |
8.4 |
|
Source: IMF * Forecasts |
|
|
|
|
The confirmation was made at a Dubai conference on Tuesday by Masood Ahmed, the IMF Middle East and Central Asia director at a launch of the IMF’s regional World Economic Outlook report (WEO).
As had been reported on by Libya Herald directly from Washington DC, the WEO report had been launched in October at the IMF/World Bank Conferences.
The 5.1 percent contraction of the Libyan economy is due wholly to the oil blockades to its main oil terminals. There have been numerous industrial and political blockades of oil facilities in Libya, ranging from political demands by ethnic minorities such as the Libyan Tuaregs, Tebus and Amazighs, to the demand of armed militants for federation in the eastern region of Cyrenaica.
As a result of these blockades, the IMF had predicted, unofficially to GNC members, as early as September that Libya will have a budgetary deficit in 2013, a prediction confirmed in the IMF’s official October WEO report.
The deficit was also confirmed this week by Prime Minister Ali Zeidan during his Sunday press conference.
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