On Sunday, Zambia announced that it would set aside funds which are aimed at rebasing the size of its economy in 2019, the latest African nation to take a route that typically inflates the size of its gross domestic product.
“We need a clear picture on the size of the Zambian economy due to its changed structure from 2010 to date,” Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe said in a statement
“Therefore, we have set aside funds in the 2019 budget for rebasing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in order to better measure our economy,” the statement said.
No further details about the rebasing exercise were provided. Zambia is Africa’s second largest copper producer and is also, to a large extent, dependent on agriculture.
In Zimbabwe, the statistics agency rebased some of its economic statistics earlier in October in an unexpected move that the government said increased the nominal size of its struggling economy by more than 40 percent.
Nigeria , recently surpassed South Africa as Africa’s largest economy after a rebasing calculation in 2014 that almost doubled its GDP to more than $500 billion (R7.3 trillion).
-Reuters