The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has stated that with consumer demand remaining robust during the year, helped by the lower cost of credit, Ghana’s GDP is projected to reach 6.5% in 2019.
This projection is about 1.1% less than the government has projected to grow the GDP this year.
The 2019 Budget presented by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, proposes an overall real GDP growth targeted of 7.6%, higher than the 2018 expected growth of 5.4%.
In the government’s own estimation, non-oil real GDP growth for 2019 is budgeted at 6.2% as against 5.4% expected for 2018.
For end-period inflation for 2019, the government projected 8.0% which is almost the same as the targeted inflation (8.9%) for year-end 2018, while the fiscal deficit target is 4.2% of GDP, a little higher than the 2018 projection of 3.7%.
However, EIU further projects in its latest report on Ghana that GDP growth will ease to 5.7% in 2020 as “Ghana is affected by weaker global economic conditions – weighing on investment flows into the country – although government and private consumption levels will rise slightly ahead of the election that year.”
