The steady economic growth that Africa has enjoyed over the past decade is now waning. Global commodity prices, particularly oil, have weakened and China, Africa’s largest individual bilateral trading partner, has slowed considerably as it rebalances itself away from investment and growth. According to the IMF, a 1 percentage point decrease in China’s investment growth is associated with an average 0.6 percentage point decrease in Africa’s export growth rate. The depth of the China-Africa trade relationship explains why this month, the World Bank, in its annual Africa’s Pulse report, downgraded Africa’s growth projections from 4.6 per cent in 2014 to 3.7 per cent in 2015 – the lowest growth the region will have seen since the ripples of the global economic crisis hit it in 2009. A new period of slow growth demands new and creative responses from African leaders.
非洲過去十年享受的穩定經濟成長現在開始減緩。全球大宗商品（尤其是石油）價格低迷，而中國這個非洲最大的單一雙邊貿易伙伴的經濟大幅放緩——它正在轉型擺脫投資拉動成長的模式。國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)的數據顯示，中國投資成長率每下降1個百分點，非洲出口成長率平均下降0.6個百分點。中非密切的貿易關係解釋了，爲何本月世界銀行(World Bank)在其《非洲脈搏》(Africa’s Pulse)年度報告中將非洲成長預測從2014年的4.6%下調至2015年的3.7%——這是自2009年遭受全球經濟危機餘波衝擊以來，該地區將會出現的最低成長率。非洲進入新的緩慢成長時期，這要求非洲領導人做出新的創造性回應。