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Ghana in the second quarter of this year nominally recorded a trade surplus of GH₵5.4 billion driven by gold exports, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) trade report has revealed.
This means that the country exported more products than it brought into the country in the second period under review.
This is the third consecutive time since the fourth quarter 2023 that the country has recorded trade surplus.
In the period under review, the value of the country’s export nominally stood at GH₵64.2 billion while the value of imports at current prices stood at GH₵58.8 billion.
The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel K. Annim, disclosed this in Accra yesterday when the GSS released the second quarter trade statistics for the country.
He said the total trade value for the second quarter nominally was GH₵123.0 billion, compared with GH₵107.6 billion in the same period last year.
Prof. Annnim stated that the share of gold exports increased by more than 10.0 percentage points from 47.5 per cent to 57.6 per cent in the second quarter 2024 to GH₵GH37.0 billion.
Moreover, he said crude petroleum with the value of GH₵12.6 billion accounting for 19.6 per cent of exports was the second-highest export product for the second quarter of this year.
Cashew nuts, cocoa paste, and cocoa beans were among the other top exports products in the period under review.
“The top export products – gold bullion, crude petroleum, cashew nuts, cocoa paste and cocoa beans, together accounted for 82.7 per cent of all exports,” Prof. Annim stated, adding that the top export destinations received 71.4 per cent of all exports.
However, the Government Statistician disclosed that the export value of cocoa decreased by about GH₵4.0 billion between the first quarter and second quarter of 2024.
Prof. Annim further said the major top five destinations for the country’s exports for the second quarter were United Arab Emirates and Switzerland, South Africa, China and India, with United Arab Emirates and Switzerland remaining Ghana’s gold export destination.
“Asia and Europe are consistently Ghana’s main export destinations, accounting for 73.9 per cent of exports in second quarter 2024. Asia remains the main export destinations since overtaking Europe in fourth quarter 2023,” he stated.
The other major import destinations, he mentioned, were United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, India and United States of America.
“In the second quarter 2024, just over half (50.8 per cent) of all imports originate from Asia, marking a notable increase of 8.5 percentage points from the second quarter 2023 and 3.1 percentage points from first quarter 2024. There is a declining trend in the share of imports from Europe in contrast to a rising share from Asia, signalling a significant shift in Ghana’s import sources,” Prof. Annim revealed.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
