Ghana’s growth rate drops to 1.6% in 2023 IMF report

The International Monetary Fund in its April 2023 World Economic Outlook (WEO) Report has reduced Ghana’s growth rate from its earlier forecast of 2.8% to 1.6% for this year.

This comes after the World Bank revised its prediction of the nation’s growth rate for this year downward to below 2%.

The main causes, according to the Fund, were fiscal slippages brought on by high debt levels and budget deficits, which resulted in lower government spending on infrastructure and investments.

The GDP was forecast to grow by 2.9%, nevertheless in 2024.

According to the report, economic prospects for emerging markets and developing nations are generally better than advanced economies, but these prospects vary more substantially by region.

Growth is anticipated to average 3.9% in 2023 and 4.2% in 2024.

The projection for 2023 is much lower than the 4.7% forecast from January 2022 and is somewhat lower by 0.1 percentage point than in the January 2023 WEO Update.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of low-income developing nations is projected to increase by 5.1% on average between 2023 and 2024, but projected per capita income growth is only projected at 2.8%, which is lower than the average for middle-income economies (3.2%) and thus falls short of the trajectory required for living standards to catch up to those in middle-income economies.