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Drought continues to put pressure on major sectors in Namibia: experts

Xinhua, June 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

The drought situation and the short supply of clean water in Namibia will continue to put pressure on major sectors, financial services firm Simon Storm Securities (SSS) said Tuesday.

The review of the firm came after the recently released statistics of first quarter (1Q2016) GDP data from the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA).

According to the released figures, 1Q2016 GDP grew at a much slower pace of 3.5 percent compared to 7.3 percent recorded during the same quarter in 2015.

NSA said slower growth during this quarter can be attributed to slowed growth in the Construction Sector by 0.2 percent compared to 34.5 percent 1Q2015.

"The Agricultural Sector remained under pressure, contracting by 12.2 percent compared to -2.1 percent in the 1Q2015 and in addition, the Fishing Sector also contracted by 3.5 percent compared to 8.0 percent in the 1Q2015," the agency said.

Meanwhile, Simon Storm Securities (SSS) said the construction industry will remain under pressure as the drought persists.

"The Construction Sector which drove GDP during 2015 has slowed down significantly. We believe this to be a result of the problems faced by the City of Windhoek as a result of the water crisis as well as a slowdown in demand in the residential property market," SSS added.

"If the problem is not given the right attention, we expect more industries to move or cut production similar to Namibia Breweries or seek alternative water sources such as private borehole," SSS added. Endit