Iipumbu Sakaria
The NSA released the annual national accounts recently. The national accounts are a compilation of sectors of the economy and provide an analysis and overview of how the economy performed. The Namibian economy has recovered from significant economic declines witnessed in the years 2019 and 2020. In the year 2021, the economy grew by 2.7%, which is a huge change from the decline of 8% witnessed in the year 2020.
Over the past few years, or since 2014, the economy has seen significant declines to the extent where some said they had never seen such declines in the Namibian economy for years. In 2014, the Namibian economy grew by 6.1%, which declined to 4.3% in 2015 until it reached no growth in 2016. From 2016 onwards, the economy declined by a good percent, before it briefly grew by 1.1% from whence the downturn become significant with a decline of 0.8% and the decline of 8% witnessed in the year 2020. Most Namibians will agree that the past few years have not been very good for them economically.
Economic growth and declines over the past few years have been witnessed in both the primary, secondary and tertiary industries. Over the past eight years, the primary sector had half of these years where the economic growth declined, with the major years having been 2015, 2016, 2019, as well as the year 2020. The primary sector is largely dominated by the agriculture, forestry, and fishing sectors as well as the mining and quarrying sectors.
The secondary sector has been hard hit since 2014, as this sector only had three years where growth was achieved. The remaining five years saw the economic sector decline. The secondary sector is dominated by sectors such as manufacturing and construction. The construction sector has continued to contract since 2016, which has been significantly noticed since then. With regards to the tertiary sector, the sector performed better as it had eight out of five years achieving economic growth. It is one of the sectors that performed better in 2021 and is dominated by the wholesale and retail trade, hotels, and restaurants as well as the transport and storage sectors. Over the past few years, especially during Covid, the wholesale and retail trade, as well as hotels and restaurants were significantly affected by measures put in place to contain Covid-19. The economic recovery in 2021 is largely attributed to the easing of restrictive measures implemented to contain Covid-19.
In terms of inflation, and the Namibian economy currently can be described as inflationary, has been rising for some time. Since 2014, Namibia has been having generally a declining inflationary environment. Inflation stood at 5.4% in 2014, which declined to 3.4% in 2014 before inflation rose to above 6% in 2016 and 2017. Inflation declined from 4. 4% in 2018 to 2.2% in 2020 before it rose to 3.6% in 2021. Since Namibia is generally a net importer of goods and services, most of Namibia’s inflation is considered imported inflation which has been very significantly felt in the fuel and food sectors.
The Namibia Statistics Agency would like to acknowledge that the Covid-19 pandemic presented a formidable challenge in terms of data collection. It is against that background that NSA would like to appreciate and our data suppliers who have been partners with us in ensuring that the public remained informed about economic activities taking place in the economy. The NSA appreciates this. The next update on the economy will be released toward the end of September and the nation is welcome to request data via info@nsa.org.na or acquire is through our website at www.nsa.org.na.
*Iipumbu Sakaria is the Manager of Corporate Communications at the Namibia Statistics Agency.