Balance of Trade for Ghana amounted to US$780m in February 2020 – BoG report

Ghana's total exports surpassed imports by US$780 million as at February 2020

Data released from the Bank of Ghana (BoG) indicates that the country’s total exports surpassed imports by US$780 million as at February 2020.

According to the central bank, the Balance of Trade for Ghana represented 1.1 percent of the total value of all goods and services produced in the country.

Meanwhile, this year’s figure is also an increase compared to the US$378 million or 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), recorded in February 2019.

The BoG has attributed this increase to the fact that the country’s imports declined for the period, while it also benefited from the increase in some prices of commodities like cocoa and gold.

The figures for February 2020 however cited that Ghana raked in a total of US$2.76 billion from the export of traditional commodities like oil, cocoa and gold.

This however represents an increase from the US$2.67 billion recorded in 2019.

Consequently, Ghana spent an amount of US$1.98 billion on the importation of oil and non-oil commodities in February 2020 compared to the US$2.29 billion from the same period for 2019.

The Bank of Ghana adds that the country benefited from the rise of prices in commodities like cocoa and gold, spanning February 2019 to February 2020.

For example, the price of an ounce of a precious mineral, gold, rose from US$1,319 to US$1,601 which represents a growth of 8.2%.

The price of a ton of cocoa also rose from US$2,387 to US$2,668 representing a growth of 6.9%.

However, 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 US$66 dollars to US$55 between February 2019 and February 2020.

Currently, Ghana’s gross international reserve which indicates how much the country can afford granted all major streams of revenue are hardly impacted, reached an amount of US$10 billion in February 2020.

Following that, this could cover 4.8 months of import cover.

The figure, therefore, represents an increase from the US$6.3 billion which could cover 3.2 months of import cover recorded in February 2019.