Ghana’s gross reserves fall to 2.9 months of import cover in September 2022

Ghana’s Gross International Reserves fell to $6.6 billion, equivalent to 2.9 months of import cover for goods and services in September 2022, data from the Bank of Ghana has revealed.

This is compared with the December 2021 position of $9.7 billion, equivalent to 4.3 months of import cover.

However, net International Reserves, which exclude encumbered assets and petroleum funds, is estimated at US$2.7 billion as at September 2022.

Trade surplus hits $1.7bn

Meanwhile, Ghana recorded a trade surplus of $1.7 billion dollars in the eight months of this year.

This far exceeds the surplus of $892.4 million dollars recorded in August 2021.

According to the Bank of Ghana’s Summary of Economic and Financial Data, this was driven by higher receipts from gold, crude oil and non-traditional exports (NTEs).

Importantly, total exports went up by 19.5% year-on-year to $11.8 billion dollars.

Crude oil exports totalled $3.8bn

Crude oil exports totalled $3.8 billion, 56.5% higher than observed in 2021. This is mainly due to price effects.

Gold export earnings also went up by 23.9% to $4.2 billion, supported by increased production volumes triggered by the positive response from small-scale gold exporters to the downward revision of the withholding tax regime from 3% to 1.5%.

However, on account of lower prices and low cocoa purchases, cocoa receipts declined by 22.8% to $1.7 billion from $2.1 billion.

Total imports stood at $10.2bn

However, total imports grew by 12.9% on a year-on-year basis to $10.2 billion. This was mainly driven by higher oil and gas import bill.

Non-oil imports, however, dipped by 3.8% year-on-year to $7.1 billion in the review period.