The results of the Togolese GDP rebasing work were presented and adopted on September 22, 2020 by the Togolese government. The process made it possible to revalue the national wealth produced in the country by 36.5%, and hence several other economic aggregates.

Togo will have chosen the right timing to publish the results of the work to rebase its GDP, in a context marked by the crisis linked to the coronavirus and fears of a further rise in the debt curve. According to a statement from the Council of Ministers presented on Tuesday evening on national television, this work resulted in the production of accounts for the base year 2016 and the current year 2017. The results of these accounts "made the object of validation by experts (…) during a workshop held in Lomé from January 27 to 31, 2020”, indicates the same source.

This work was carried out by a multidisciplinary technical management committee set up by an interministerial decree dated November 26, 2018. According to the results, the GDP for the year 2016, under the national accounts system (SNA) 2008 , rises to 3,574.4 billion FCFA against 2,618.1 billion FCFA according to the old model (SNA 1993). This represents a revaluation of 36.5%.

For 2017, real GDP stood at CFAF 3,729.8 billion, which corresponds to a growth rate of 4.3% between 2016 and 2017. Nominal GDP, for its part, now amounts to 3,713.6 billion FCFA for the same year.

According to the government press release, based on the results of the rebasing, nominal GDP stood at 3,951.4 billion FCFA in 2018 and 4,230.6 billion FCFA in 2019 according to the 2008 SNA against 2,979 respectively, 6 billion FCFA and 3,216.8 billion FCFA in the 1993 system. In addition, the updated GDP forecasts for the year 2020 amount to 4,399.9 billion against 3,322.3 billion initially forecast according to the 1993 SNA.

These new figures are not without – positive – impact on “the first rank convergence criteria” which, insists the Togolese government, are all “respected”. The debt ratio and the budget balance (including grants) relative to GDP have improved, with a debt ratio of 51.9% of GDP in 2019 compared to 68.3% in the old system. On this basis, the revised forecasts show a debt ratio of 51.8% in 2020, against 68.6% according to the 1993 SNA.

For its part, the tax pressure rate increased from 20.8% (SNA 1993) to 13.6% (SNA 2008) in 2019 and from 21.1% to 14.6% in 2020 (in forecast) for a standard of 20.0% minimum.

"Togo, like other countries in Africa, has opted for the migration from the 1993 system of national accounts (SNA) to the 2008 system of national accounts (SNA) in order to align its methods of preparing accounts with current international standards and make its macroeconomic aggregates internationally comparable,” the government explains.

As a reminder, several other countries in the West African sub-region have already experimented with the relining technique in recent years. This is the case of Nigeria in 2014, thus becoming the leading economy in Africa, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, and Senegal.