A general view of Makola market in Accra, Ghana March 26, 2022. REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko
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ACCRA, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Ghana’s economy grew 4.8% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2022, driven by growth in the fishing, manufacturing and education services sectors, data from the country’s statistics service said on Tuesday.
The gold and cocoa-producing nation, which announced in July it would seek IMF support as its balance of payments position deteriorated, posted 4.2% growth in the second quarter of 2021.
Economic growth came in at 3.3% in the first quarter of this year, less than half the 7% growth seen in the last quarter of 2021 as the West African nation battled runaway inflation, local currency depreciation and high public debt.
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“The sharp decline we saw last quarter has reversed slightly,” government statistician Samuel Kobina Annim said during a news conference.
The government has blamed its troubles on a combination of forces, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and economic slumps in the US and China.
However, Annim warned against seeing the recent growth as a reversal of fate. Growth numbers may not fully reflect the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine until the third and fourth quarters of this year, he said.
“Remember that everything that happened in Ukraine in the first quarter of the year and the COVID-19 pandemic has many knock-through effects,” Annim said.
“If you look at macroeconomic variables like inflation and the exchange rate, the potential for a pass-through effect in the third and fourth quarters is high,” he added.
Headline inflation rose 10.4 percentage points on an annualized basis in the second quarter, while the country’s balance of payments deficit widened to nearly $2.5 billion by the end of June, from about $935 million in March.
However, the country’s cedi currency, which experienced rapid depreciation in the second half of the first quarter, remained broadly stable during the second quarter. It has since resumed its slide, losing around 30% of its value against the dollar year-to-date.
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Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Cooper Inveen; Editing by James Macharia Chege, Alexandra Hudson
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