Highlights 

• The world’s leading producer of cocoa and the fifteenth world producer of coffee, the economy of Côte d’Ivoire remains dominated by the primary sector and in particular by these two products. However, the country has a booming secondary sector in recent years and a predominantly tertiary sector in the country’s economy.
• Côte d’Ivoire has the highest growth rate in the union with subdued inflation. The country experienced an average annual growth rate of 7.8% over the 2015-2017 period. After a slowdown in 2018, the growth of the Ivorian economy came out at 6.9% in 2019. It should slow to 3.6% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis. Contributions to growth in the secondary and tertiary sectors should drop from 2.2 and 4.1 percentage points in 2019 to 1.1 and 2.8 percentage points in 2020.  As for the contribution of primary sector, it would be negative in 2020.
• The budget deficit is improved from 0.7 percentage points to 2.3% of GDP in 2019 in line with the improvement in the revenue mobilization and the control of current expenditure. Due to the adverse effects of the COVID-19 over the economic activity, the budget deficit would settle at 5.1% of GDP in 2020.  
• The current account balance has gradually deteriorated over the last five years, going from -0.4 of GDP in 2015 to -3.6% in 2018 before settling at -3.7% in 2019. It is expected to fall to 3.6% of GDP in 2020 related to the foreign exchange disruptions occasioned by the COVID-19. The deterioration in the current account balance over the last five years is due to the strong increase in imports of capital goods in line with investments made under the National Development Plan combined with imports of crude oil. In addition, exports have increased slightly due to the fall in world cocoa prices.