Africa-Press – Namibia. The Bank of Namibia (BoN) on Thursday launched DataSphere, a free, centralised online platform designed to improve public access to national macroeconomic and financial statistics.
Speaking at the Monetary Policy Dialogue, held as part of the bank’s 35th anniversary celebrations, BoN deputy governor Ebson Uanguta said the platform will enhance the accessibility, visibility and usability of economic data sets, enabling policymakers, businesses, investors and the public to make evidence-based decisions.
“The absence of relevant economic data reduces macroeconomic policy to mere guesswork, and we do not want to be part of that,” he said, adding that timely statistics are essential for accountability and sound planning.
DataSphere will consolidate official data from the central bank, government, the Namibia Statistics Agency and other sources, covering indicators such as the balance of payments, public finance, real sector data and monetary statistics. It will also host BoN publications, including the annual report, economic outlook and financial stability reports, in interactive formats.
Namibia became a subscriber to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Data Dissemination Standard in December 2022, joining only six other African countries in meeting the highest global benchmarks for publishing comprehensive economic and financial data.
Also speaking at the dialogue was BoN governor Johannes !Gawaxab, who said Namibia’s current account deficit is expected to widen in 2025 due to increased outflows in the primary income account, while inflation, which stood at 3.5% in July, is projected to decline from the 5% level.
He said the government budget deficit is projected to expand to about 4.6% of gross domestic product in 2024/25 from 3.9% last year, before narrowing to 3% by 2027/28 under the medium-term investment framework.
“Revenue for the current fiscal year is expected to rise by 1.9% to N$92.6 billion, while expenditure is projected to grow by 4.9% to N$78.9 billion for operations, N$12.8 billion for development, N$3.2 billion for externally funded projects and N$13.7 billion for interest payments,” !Gawaxab said. – Nampa
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