Ghana’s economy has grown faster than expected, exceeding the SSA average growth rate of 4.5 percent for 2020, but debt buildup has reduced to pre-pandemic levels, according to the Ghana Statistical Service’s latest official GDP figures for 2020 and 2021. The economy has slowed.
The Ghana Statistical Service published the official 2021 fourth quarter and annual GDP figures on April 20, 2022. (GSS).
The GSS estimates that real GDP increased 7% in Q4 2021, compared to 4.3% in Q4 2020. Similarly, non-oil real GDP grew 7.6% in Q4 2021 vs 5.7 % in Q4 2020.
Year-on-year, the preliminary real GDP growth rate for 2021 was 5.4 percent, beating the 4.4 percent projection and the SSA average growth rate by 0.9 percentage.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy grew at a revised 0.5% rate in 2020, confirming the economy’s recovery.
Unoil real GDP grew at 6.9% in 2021, above the objective of 5.9%. From GH391,940.7 million in 2020, the Nominal GDP for 2021 is anticipated to be GH459,130.9 million.
It is expected to rise from GH378,147.9 million in 2020 to GH437,000 in 2021.
To reflect the new GDP statistics, all economic indicators based on GDP ratios will change. Some of these ratios include debt to GDP, fiscal deficit to GDP, and revenue to GDP, which are all important in assessing debt sustainability.
It also affects the nominal 2022 GDP goal and growth rate, since it is based on the revised 2021 GDP.
According to the latest projections, the budget deficit (including energy and Finsec payments) would fall from 15% to 14.7% of GDP in 2020. A similar reduction has been made to the budget deficit for 2021.
Ghana’s public debt stock will be 76.6 percent of GDP by 2021, down from 80.1 percent before. On the other hand, the 2020 debt stock has fallen from 76.1 percent to 74.4 percent, confirming the slowing of debt creation.
Therefore, the Ministry of Finance will update its debt sustainability analysis and revise its GDP projections for 2022 and the medium term to reflect the positive developments in 2021 and recent policy decisions that support robust economic growth, according to a statement released on Wednesday April 27.
According to the statement, “these trends are encouraging and demonstrate that the economy is recovering post-COVID-19, debt buildup is slowing, and fiscal expansion is slowing,”
Source: TheBBCghana.Com
