Ghana

2023-11-08

Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, in West Africa, has a land mass of 238,533km2. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Togo in the east.

Ghana has a population of 32.8 million and a GDP of US$77.6bn. Its rapid GDP growth of 7% per annum from 2017 to 2019 was halted by the pandemic, with a sharp decline in commodity exports. After slowing to 0.5% in 2020, growth rebounded to 5.4% in 2021 on the back of agriculture and services sector growth. Recovery was relatively inclusive and labour intensive, with the extractive sector making only small contributions.

The country’s mineral wealth includes gold, manganese, industrial diamonds and bauxite and unexploited deposits of columbite-tantalite, ilmenite, iron ore, limestone, lithium and rutile, while aggregates, bauxite, clay, diamonds, gemstones, gold, manganese, silica sand and silver are also produced. Gold is the most important mineral produced, and accounts for more than 90% of mineral revenues. There has also been a discovery of commercial quantities of oil and gas at the Jubilee Field off Cape Three Points, which has fast-tracked infrastructural development at the Port of Takoradi.

Other important industries are shipbuilding, light manufacturing, cement manufacturing, aluminium smelting, lumbering, cocoa and other food processing.

The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre reported that Ghana secured US$2.6bn of foreign direct investment in 2020, contributing to the registration of 279 projects made up of 129 new projects, 131 upstream development projects and 19 free zones activities across eight regions. These projects were expected to create around 27,110 jobs.

In the first quarter of 2022, GDP grew by 3.3% year-on-year, down from 3.6% in the same period in 2021. Non-oil growth slowed significantly to 3.7% from 5.3%, reflecting a slowdown in agriculture and services.

GDP growth is expected to slow to 3.5% in 2022 and average 3.3% from 2022 to 2024 as macroeconomic instability and corrective policy measures depress aggregate demand.
The fiscal deficit is projected to remain high in 2023 (9.2% of GDP) and beyond.


Sources: Who Owns Whom sector reports, CIA Factbook, African Development Bank, World Bank, Trading Economics, African Statistical Yearbook and IMF.