London, Mar. 4, 2026 (Lusa) - Mozambique is the country with the highest risk in Africa, surpassing Zimbabwe, according to the risk index of the consulting firm Oxford Economics, which forecasts a 25% devaluation of the metical by the end of the year.
“A devaluation seems inevitable for the metical; an unsustainable debt burden means that the government will have to give in to the demands of the International Monetary Fund, with exchange rate reform most likely being one of the conditions for an aid package, so we predict that the metical will lose a fifth of its value before the second half of the year,” the analysts write.
In the report on the African country risk index, sent to clients and accessed by Lusa, Mozambique surpassed Zimbabwe and is now the nation with the highest score, over 75 points, on a scale where Malawi and Zimbabwe appear in second and third place, with Angola occupying seventh place among 25 countries analysed.
“The country's devastated economy has suffered further blows with the worst floods in decades, the planned closure of the Mozal smelter, and maintenance work at Coral South FLNG,” the floating gas production platform off the coast of Cabo Delgado province.
In its quarterly analysis of the evolution of the main African economies, Oxford Economics also says that “although post-election violence is a thing of the past, the factors that led to instability remain and need to be addressed in a substantive way to prevent a recurrence.”
In addition, analysts continue, “social cohesion will also be tested by devastating floods in the south of the country, and the necessary economic reforms will cause difficulties for public finances,” in a context of “difficulties in recent months, with declines in foreign currency reserves and a significant weakening of the economic outlook.”
The Oxford Economics report was released at the same time that the consultancy revised its growth forecast for the Mozambican economy downward, from 2.5% to 0.3% this year.
“Unfortunately, we anticipate that Mozambique's economy will face another difficult year in 2026,” analysts wrote today in a commentary on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures for the last quarter of 2025, which show an expansion of 4.67% compared to the same period in 2024.
In the last quarter of 2025, the Mozambican economy managed to reverse four consecutive quarters of decline, growing 4.67%, but it did not avoid a 0.52% recession for the year as a whole, according to the local National Statistics Institute (INE).
The last period of economic growth was recorded before the elections, in the third quarter of 2024, at 5.58%.
MBA/ADB // ADB.
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