Cape verde property market defies the odds

An example comes from the property market on the tiny island of Sal in the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde, an archipelago of 10 tropical and desert islands located mid-Atlantic between Senegal and Brazil.

That the economy suffered from the global financial crises is not in doubt. Real GDP growth at 8.6 per cent in 2007 dropped to 3.6 per cent in 2009. But robust government policy with big dollops of fiscal prudence have put the economy back on track.

GDP, above five per cent this year, is projected to reach 6.8 per cent during 2012, according to the World Bank. Cape Verdean finance minister Cristina Duarte reported in Washington DC to a World Bank-IMF meeting earlier this year that between 2000 and 2010 average GDP growth was 6.2 per cent.

Cape Verde is a low-inflation, low-crime country and one of the few places in Africa predicted to reach the UN’s 2015 Millennium Development Goals. Despite this, poverty remains a problem, especially in rural areas.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk