same time, developing markets adopted a package worth around 4% of GDP, whereas advanced countries executed a package worth approximately 16% of GDP. As African nations struggled to address the health and economic repercussions of the pandemic, the average fiscal deficit throughout Africa increased from 5% of GDP in 2019 to over 8% in 2020. Due to a lack of fiscal headroom, the deficit resulted in increasing borrowing, which African countries have less capacity to absorb than other developed economies. Northern and Southern African countries have taken the most total measures to address the financial sector crisis resulting from the pandemic, with an average of 14 measures per country. 34 African nations have adopted steps to increase liquidity and lower borrowing costs, mostly through lowering the policy rate. South Africa, for example, has decreased policy rates by 200 basis points or more. The most used measure has been to modify the handling of nonperforming loans by lowering provisioning requirements. To help banks get through the COVID-19 crisis, authorities have limited dividends or other uses of earnings, permitted the temporary release of capital buffers, eased capital or liquidity requirements, or made other temporary adjustments to prudential standards. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, African private investment was steady in 2020, rising to $4.3 billion from $3.9 billion in 2019 as pipeline and current transactions were closed. For resource-intensive nations, real per capita GDP is anticipated to stay below pre-pandemic levels until at least 2024, with growth of barely 1% per year in 2022 and 2023. Before the pandemic, 2% or more of growth had been anticipated. Trade growth Trade has driven much of the growth in Africa's economy in the early 21st century. China and India are increasingly important trade partners; 12.5% of Africa's exports are to China, and 4% are to India, which accounts for 5% of China's imports and 8% of India's. The Group of Five (Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates) are another increasingly important market for Africa's exports. Future Africa's economy—with expanding trade, English language skills (official in many Sub-Saharan countries), improving literacy and education, availability of splendid resources and cheaper labour force—is expected to continue to perform better into the future. Trade between Africa and China stood at US$166 billion in 2011. Africa will only experience a "demographic dividend" by 2035, when its young and growing labour force will have fewer children and retired