IMF agrees to Ivory Coast loans of $659mn

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund has approved two loans totaling $658.9 million for the Ivory Coast, while welcoming recent economic and financial reforms made by the country.

Abidjan will immediately receive a $94.1 million tranche, while the rest will be paid following semi-annual reviews of the economic program's implementation, the IMF said Monday.

IMF Deputy Managing Director Mitsuhiro Furusawa said the Ivory Coast "economy has made an impressive turnaround since 2012 and its outlook remains favorable.

"Nevertheless, reducing poverty and closing human capital and infrastructure gaps will take time, and structural bottlenecks pose challenges."

The IMF noted the country's "impressive turnaround since 2012" as well as its improved political climate and a "supportive fiscal policy facilitated by extensive debt relief."

Real GDP grew an average of nine percent per year between 2012 and 2015, reversing a decline in per capita income that lasted nearly a decade.

But this return to growth has not "fully shed the socio-economic legacies of decades of sluggish growth compounded by conflict," the IMF said.

For 2016, the IMF expects real GDP to grow at around eight percent over the year.