Sub-Saharan African countries should allow their currencies to weaken to absorb shocks to their economies, the International Monetary Fund said. Resisting currency pressure depletes foreign-exchange reserves and results in weaker imports and economic growth, the Washington-based lender said in its Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa. Sliding commodity prices have put African currencies from Ghana to Zambia under pressure, forcing governments to scale back spending as debt rises and prompting central banks to implement aggressive monetary policy tightening to curb inflation. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, has resisted devaluing its currency despite a plunge in crude revenue, imposing foreign-currency controls instead that are undermining economic output. “Interventions should be limited to disorderly movements of the exchange rate,” the IMF said. “Monetary policy should only respond to second-round effects, if any, of exchange rate pass-through and other upward shocks to inflation.” The IMF is forecasting economic expansion of 3.8 percent […]