AFRICA: LOOKING BLEAK

Africa’s resource-centered economy has become another a victim of the coronavirus.
China’s virus epidemic has shut off about 900,000 barrels of daily use in that country, weakening oil prices.
That prompted the IMF to cut its 2020 growth forecast for Nigeria’s oil-based economy from 2.5 percent to 2.0 percent.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy.
China also accounts for 95 percent of South Sudan’s export revenue and 61 percent of Angola’s, both in oil; and 58 percent of Eretria’s as zinc and copper. Cobalt shipments to China comprise 45 percent of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s export income.
African exports to China grew 20 percent in 2018 but only 2.2 percent in 2020, due in part to the December virus outbreak but more widely attributable to China’s slowing economy.
TREND FORECAST: The world is on the brink of the “Greatest Depression.” Considering the low level of reported coronavirus deaths, we are not in the camp that the virus will become a global pandemic. Should it worsen, however, the toll will be devastating, bringing down economies that have already been on the brink or recession/depression, which were artificially propped up with cheap money.