Sign in Subscribe
International trade

IMF Executive Board Concludes 2025 Article IV Consultation with Namibia

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

Namibia's economy continues to face significant challenges, with heightened global trade policy tensions, weather shocks, and a structural shift in the global diamond market all taking a toll on growth. Despite efforts to maintain fiscal discipline and create space for growth-enhancing measures, the country's economic growth has decelerated from 5.4 percent in 2022 to 3.7 percent in 2024.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded the Article IV Consultation for Namibia, highlighting the need for bold structural reforms to foster sustainable, inclusive, and private sector-led growth. The Executive Board emphasized the importance of addressing key barriers to growth, including improving human capital and reducing skill mismatches, enhancing the business climate, strengthening governance, and fostering digitalization.

Key Takeaways:

  • Namibia's economic growth decelerated from 5.4 percent in 2022 to 3.7 percent in 2024, with a decline in diamond production outweighing momentum from rising gold and uranium prices.
  • The country's inflation has fallen, reflecting a drop in food and fuel prices in international markets, with average CPI inflation projected to ease to 4.1 percent in 2025 and remain around 4.5 percent in the medium term.
  • The Executive Board stressed the need for sustained and larger fiscal consolidation over the medium term to entrench favorable public debt dynamics and strengthen the external position.
  • Directors recommended increasing public investment to enhance growth, expanding social protection, and building resilience to weather shocks.
  • The authorities should continue their efforts to establish a strong governance framework for the sovereign wealth fund and a natural resource management framework to safeguard long-term macroeconomic stability and support economic development.
  • The Bank of Namibia should remain vigilant to economic conditions and gradually align the policy rate with that of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).

Statistics:

  • Real GDP growth: 5.4% (2022), 4.4% (2023), 3.7% (2024), 3.8% (2025), 3.7% (2026), 2.9% (2027), 3.0% (2028), 3.0% (2029), 3.0% (2030)
  • Nominal GDP growth: 12.2% (2022), 11.3% (2023), 7.1% (2024), 8.8% (2025), 9.3% (2026), 7.4% (2027), 7.6% (2028), 7.6% (2029), 7.6% (2030)
  • Inflation: 6.1% (2022), 5.9% (2023), 4.2% (2024), 4.1% (2025), 4.5% (2026), 4.5% (2027), 4.5% (2028), 4.5% (2029), 4.5% (2030)
  • Public debt: 67.5% (2022), 66.0% (2023), 66.2% (2024), 62.3% (2025), 62.2% (2026), 62.0% (2027), 61.1% (2028), 60.1% (2029), 59.3% (2030)

Sources:

  • International Monetary Fund (IMF) - Staff Report for the 2025 Article IV Consultation with Namibia
  • IMF Communications Department - Press Release No. 25/198 (June 13, 2025)
  • IMF - Article IV of the IMF's Articles of Agreement
  • IMF - Government Finance Statistics Manual 2010

Read more