Last quarter imports records $12,684.3m

Ghana recorded total merchandise imports of $12,684.3 million for the last quarter of 2017, comprising $2,028.6 million in oil imports and $10,655.6 million in non-oil imports, compared to total merchandise exports of $13,751.9 million, comprising gold exports of $5,786.2 million, $2,711.2 million in cocoa exports and $3,019.1 million in oil exports.

This culminated in a trade balance of $1,067.6 million, figures released by the Bank of Ghana’s Summary of Economic & Financial Data for January 2018 revealed.

Under Balance of Payments (BOP), current account balance recorded a gap of $2,124.9 million, equivalent to -4.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product.

The capital and financial account balance recorded $3,015.7 million, equivalent to 6.5 percent of GDP, culminating in an overall BOP of $1,091.4 million, equivalent to 2.3 percent of GDP.

Gross International Reserves (GIR) also recorded $7,554.8 million, equivalent to 4.3 months of import cover.

Total revenue and grants, the report continued, stood at 17.1 percent of GDP as at November last year while tax revenue stood at 13.4 percent of GDP.

Total expenditure registered 22.5 percent of GDP.

Total public debt reached GH¢138.8 billion equivalent to 68.7 percent of GDP.

This was made up of external debt component of GH¢74.7 billion at 37 percent of GDP and a domestic debt (GH¢64.2 billion), compared to 31.8 percent of GDP.

Private sector credit was GH¢33.8 billion, equivalent to 16.7 percent of GDP.

The banking sector also recorded total assets of GH¢93.2 billion, registering an annual growth of 12.8 percent, while total deposits stood at GH¢58.3 billion, an annual growth of 10.6 percent.

Total advances stood at GH¢37.7 billion, representing an annual growth of 5.9 percent.

The sector’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) was 15 percent as at December 2017 while non-performing loans recorded 22.7 percent.