Ghana’s trade account records $2 million surplus in first 8 months of 2023 - BoG

Data from the Bank of Ghana has shown that Ghana’s export earnings dropped by 9% as of August 2023.

According to the report, total exports for the period under review stood at US$10.76 billion.

This is lower than the US$ 11.81 billion recorded in August 2022.

In the first eight months of the year, the trade account registered a surplus of US$2.0 billion, compared with US$1.6 billion recorded in the same period of last year.

This was largely due to import compression, and a decline in exports.

Gold exports have, therefore, remained the country’s most dominant export commodity followed by cocoa.

Exports for gold increased to US$ 4.67 billion from US$ 4.22 billion.

Total export earnings declined by 8.9 percent year-on-year to US$10.8 billion, driven mainly by a significant drop in crude oil and cocoa products exports.

In the review period, crude oil exports decreased sharply by US$1.5 billion due to an 18.8 percent dip in production volumes as well as a 23.6 percent decline in prices.

Cocoa exports on the other hand reduced marginally from US$ 1.61 billion to US$ 1.60 billion. Oil exports also saw a significant drop from US$ 3.82 billion to US$ 2.65 billion dollars.

Other exports reduced from US$ 2.16 billion to US$ 2.11 billion.

Trade balance to GDP increased to 2.6% higher than the 2.1% recorded in 2022.

On the import side, Ghana recorded a reduction from US$10.25 billion dollars to US$ 8.74 billion.

Total imports contracted by 14.7 percent to US$8.8 billion, from US$10.3 billion a year earlier.

This was attributed to a 13.1 percent contraction in non-oil imports to US$6.1 billion, as well as a dip in oil and gas imports of 18.2 percent to US$2.7 billion.

SSD/NOQ

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