IMF Staff Country Reports

This 2006 Article IV Consultation highlights that economic performance of Benin has been relatively subdued since 2003 after a decade of high growth. Slow economic growth has reflected limited progress in addressing core economic vulnerabilities and delays in implementing crucial growth-supporting structural reforms, against a backdrop of an appreciating real effective exchange rate and, more recently, a sizable deterioration in the terms of trade. Notwithstanding further delays in structural reforms, a turnaround in cotton production is helping to revive growth in 2006.