By Lamin Njie
The Gambian economy is anticipated to grow by four percent in 2019 compared to an actual real growth of 6.5 percent in 2018, Finance Minister Mambury Njie has said.
The top government official today brought the 2020 budget before members of the national assembly for their approval. According to Mr Njie, government will spend 30 billion dalasis in 2020. Total government expenditure and net lending for 2019 was 28.8 billion dalasis.
The growth of the country’s economy has however dropped to 4% with the finance minister saying the “decline in growth is as a result of anticipated setbacks in both agriculture and services sectors.”
“Growth in these two sectors is project at -2.6 and -1.5 percent in 2019 compared to 0.9 percent and 9.9 percent in 2018, for agriculture and services respectively.
“The contraction is on account of the delayed rain and the impact of the collapse of Thomas Cook the major carrier of tourists to The Gambia,” he added.
