Ghana Current Account Deficit Increased to $2.6 Billion in 2010
Ghana’s current account deficit widened 62.5 percent last year as imports soared, Bank of Ghana Governor Kwesi Amissah-Arthur said.
The shortfall expanded to $2.6 billion, with imports rising 33 percent to $10.7 billion, Amissah-Arthur told reporters in the capital, Accra, today.
In November, the Ghana Statistical Service revised up its calculation of the West African nation’s gross domestic product last year by 75 percent, after changing the way it measures sectors of the economy. The economy grew 6.6 percent in 2010 based on the new data, the statistical agency said.
“The data shows the current account deficit remains high at an estimated 8.5 percent of GDP from our estimate of 19 percent of GDP using pre-rebase data,” Razia Khan, London-based head of Africa research at Standard Chartered Plc, said in an e- mailed comment today. “It highlights how a surge in the price of imported oil would still be a great concern to the West African nation.”
The oil-imports bill rose 36 percent to $2 billion last year, Amissah-Arthur said.
The country’s exports grew 35 percent to $7.9 billion, buoyed by cocoa and gold shipments. Cocoa-bean exports grew 16 percent to $2.2 billion, while gold sales rose 49 percent to $3.8 billion.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
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