Sub-Saharan credit growth rates halve in two years: ODI report

Private credit growth across sub-Saharan Africa has more than halved over the past two years and ground to a halt in oil exporting countries following low oil prices and the economic slowdown in China, weighing heavily on regional growth prospects, a report said on Friday.

With international finance having become ever scarcer and costlier, private credit in sub-Saharan Africa increased by just 7 percent in the first six months of 2016, down from a 15 percent peak in 2014, according to estimates in a working paper from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).