LOME, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- In Togo, "economic activity was dynamic, in a context of weak
inflation rate", during the first nine months of 2019, said Thursday Mrs. Demba Tignokpa,
Minister of Development Planning and Cooperation.
She made this claim based on "available data", an average annual inflation rate of 1.7%
in 2019 against 0.9% in 2018, during a speech at the opening of the third session of the National Council
Credit (CNC) for the year 2019, Thursday in Lomé.
"The economic growth rate is expected to stand at 5.3% in 2019, an upward revision of 0.2
percentage point compared to the initial forecast, against an achievement of 4.9% in 2018", said Ms.
Tignokpa.
According to her, this progression would be driven by all sectors, especially the tertiary sector with a
contribution of 3.4%, as well as the secondary sector with renewed dynamism which raised its
contribution to economic growth at 1.2%.
During the nine months, "the budget deficit would be contained, for the 3rd consecutive year, within the norm
community of 3% of the Gross Domestic Product, thanks to efforts to collect public revenue and
control of budgetary expenditure", she explained.
Over the period considered, Ms. Tignokpa noted "an upward trend in loans to the economy, in
a context of falling cost of credit" with the outstanding balance of loans to the economy which increased over a
annual basis of 4.9% at the end of June 2019, after 4.2% at March 31, 2019 and 4.1% at the end of December 2018.
"This dynamism brought the ratio of loans to the economy to Gross Domestic Product to 40% as of June 30, 2019", she said.
said, regretting that the average debit interest rate for bank loans fell to 7.65% as of June 30, 2019,
against 8.52% a year earlier, a decline of 87 basis points.