Ghana’s total exports exceeded imports by 780 million dollars as at February this year, representing 1.1 percent of the total value of all goods and services produced in the country.
This year’s figure is also an increase compared to the 378 million dollars or 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), recorded in February 2019.
According to data provided by the Bank of Ghana, this was due to the fact that the country’s imports declined for the period, while it also benefited from increase in some prices of commodities like gold and cocoa.
For February 2020, Ghana raked in a total of 2.76 billion dollars from the export of traditional commodities like cocoa, gold and oil. This is an increase from the 2.67 billion dollars recorded in the previous year.
Again the country spent 1.98 billion dollars on the importation of oil and non-oil commodities in February 2020 compared to the 2.29 billion dollars from the same period last year.
Per the figures put out by the Bank of Ghana, the country benefited from the rise of prices in commodities like gold and cocoa, spanning February 2019 to February 2020.
For instance, the price of an ounce of a precious mineral, gold, rose from 1,319 dollars to 1,601 dollars. This represents a growth of 8.2%. Also, the price of a ton of cocoa rose from 2,387 dollars to 2,668 dollars representing a growth of 6.9%.
Meanwhile the price of oil, witnessed a dip of 15.1% for the 12-month period under review. A barrel of the commodity fell from about 66 dollars to 55 dollars between February 2019 and February 2020.
At present, Ghana’s gross international reserve which indicates how much the country can afford granted all major streams of revenue are hardly hit, reached 10 billion dollars in February 2020.
This could cover 4.8 months of import cover. The figure is an increase from the 6.3 billion dollars which could cover 3.2 months of import cover recorded in February 2019.
Citibusiness news