New figures released by the Bank of Ghana(BoG) shows that Ghana’s total debt stock by September 2017 has hit 138.9 billion cedis.
The figure was contained in the summary of the economic and financial data released after the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank met.
The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, who is the chair of the committee will announce a policy rate tomorrow.
It is not clear whether the rate will be reduced after it was maintained at 21 percent at the last MPC meeting.
A breakdown of the figures show that the debt stock increased marginally by 3 million cedis
By this, Ghana’s debt –to-GDP ratio as at September 2017 was at 68.6 percent.
The Domestic debt component is at 63.3 billion cedis, while external debt stood at $17.2 billion.
External sector
Export earnings in October this year hit $10.2 billion showing over $2 billion increase, compared to the $8 billion recorded for the same period in 2016.
Earnings from Gold was $4.3 billion, while Cocoa and crude oil fetched – $2 billion and $1.9 billion respectively.
For import, the country spent $9.3 billion by October to finance oil and other goods, resulting in a trade balance of $708 million.
Ghana’s international reserves as at October 31, 2017, was at $6.9 billion, representing 3.9 months of import cover reserves.
Banking sector
Banks Non Performing Loans (NPL) which is credit gone bad as October 2017 was at 21.6 percent compared to 19 percent recorded in the same period in 2016.
Meanwhile, total banking assets for the first 10 months of this year reached ¢88.9 billion compared to ¢73.8 billion for the same period for last year.
Loan advances was at 38 billion cedis ending October this year.
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