{"id":50236,"date":"2026-11-06T18:42:35","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T16:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=50236"},"modified":"2026-11-06T18:42:35","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T16:42:35","slug":"zambia-sees-steady-growth-smaller-budget-deficit-next-year","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/zambia-sees-steady-growth-smaller-budget-deficit-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia sees steady growth, smaller budget deficit next year \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zambia will aim to keep economic growth around \u200c5% in 2027 while halving the budget deficit, which swelled this year on fuel tax cuts and higher-than-projected spending, its Finance Minister said this Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Below are more details from Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane&#8217;s budget speech \u2060and context on the Southern African copper-producing country&#8217;s economic trajectory:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The government will aim to reduce the fiscal deficit to not more than 3.0% of gross domestic product from 5.9% this year.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This year&#8217;s deficit ballooned because of fuel tax cuts to cushion the impact of the Iran war on households and businesses, as well as spending on \u200cmaize \u2060purchases for the country&#8217;s food reserves.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>2026 economic growth was projected at 5.3% last month.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Zambia emerged from a prolonged debt crisis after becoming Africa&#8217;s first COVID-era sovereign default in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In October it secured staff-level \u2060backing from the International Monetary Fund for a new $1.5 billion programme.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Musokotwane said Zambia&#8217;s copper output was projected at 930 000 metric \u2060tons this year, up from roughly 890 000 tons in 2025, and that there would be a stable and predictable \u2060fiscal regime for mining companies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Zambia aims to more than triple copper output to 3 million tons by 2031.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":50237,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-50236","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Zambia will aim to keep economic growth around \u200c5% in 2027","published_date":"2026-11-06 18:41:04","news_description":"Zambia will aim to keep economic growth around \u200c5% in 2027","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50239,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50236\/revisions\/50239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=50236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}