The 5.4 percent Gross Domestic Growth (GDP) attained last year, according to the Ministry of Finance (MoF), signaled a resurgence in the Ghanaian economy.
According to data issued by the Ghana Statistical Service a few weeks ago, the country saw provisional real GDP growth of 5.4 percent, which is one percent more than the government's forecast of 4.4 percent.
The MoF stated in a statement released in Accra on Tuesday that the economy grew faster than expected in 2021, above the SSA average growth rate of 4.5 percent.
"These results are encouraging and demonstrate that the economy is recovering post-COVID-19, debt buildup is slowing, and fiscal expansion is slowing, with Ghana on course to return to the Fiscal Responsibility Act deficit level of 5% of GDP by 2024," according to the Finance Ministry.
According to data issued by the GSS, real GDP increased by 7.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to 4.3 percent growth in the same time of 2020. Similarly, non-oil real GDP increased by 7.6% in the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to 5.7 percent in the same quarter of 2020.
"On an annual basis, preliminary real GDP growth for 2021 indicated a positive outturn of 5.4 percent, one percentage point higher than the 4.4 percent predicted outturn for 2021 and 0.9 percentage point higher than the Sub-Saharan Africa average growth," the statement stated.
Similarly, non-oil real GDP increased from 1.0 percent in 2020 to 6.9% in 2021 (the greatest non-oil real GDP growth rate since the rebasing in 2013), above the objective of 5.9% for the period, according to the statement.
In a similar development, the Ministry of Finance announced that Ghana's public debt stock has decreased from 80.1 percent of GDP to 76.6 percent by the end of 2021.
The MoF also stated that the debt stock in 2020 had decreased from 76.1 percent to 74.4 percent, that the fiscal deficit (including energy and Finsec payments) had decreased from 15.0 percent to 14.7 percent of GDP in 2020, and that the fiscal deficit in 2021 had decreased from 11.7 percent to 11.4 percent.
The Ministry of Finance stated, "This is an additional indication that the rate of debt creation has dropped to pre-pandemic levels."
Ghana's total public debt, which was at roughly 62.4 percent of GDP (GH218 billion) at the end of 2019 and was below the international threshold of 70%, jumped to 76.6 percent of GDP in 2020 as a result of the government's expenditure on the COVID-19 epidemic.
The MoF will update its debt sustainability analysis (DSA) and alter its GDP predictions for 2022 and the medium term to reflect the favorable outcomes in 2021, according to the announcement.
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