Ghana GDP growth rises to 9.0 pct in Q2 as oil output increases

Ghana’s gross domestic product growth rose to 9.0 percent in the second quarter of 2017 from 6.6 percent in the previous three months, mainly because oil output increased, the statistics office said on Wednesday.
For years, Ghana’s economy grew around 8 percent per year, but it slowed in 2014 as the prices of its commodity exports fell and it suffered a fiscal crisis that forced it to secure an aid deal with the International Monetary Fund.
“The driver for the change in this year’s second quarter growth was mainly the petroleum component, which rose 188 percent in the mining and quarrying sub-sector,” acting government statistician Baah Wadieh told reporters in the capital, Accra.
This year’s second-quarter growth compares with 1.1 percent recorded in the same period last year. The statistics office also revised its full-year 2016 GDP growth to 3.7 percent, up from 3.5 percent.
Producer price inflation rose to 6.6 percent year-on-year in August from 2.0 percent the previous month, mainly because fuel prices rose, the statistics office said.
Ghana, which also exports cocoa and gold, began production from its TEN oil field in August last year, followed by Italy’s ENI Sankofa field, which came on stream in July of this year.

(C) Reuters News