Ghana’s Trade surplus hits over $500m

According to new data from the Central Bank of Ghana, the total balance of trade for February 2017 recorded a surplus of 573 million dollars.

This is equivalent to 1.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product for the period.

This is an improvement from the over 500 million dollars deficit recorded in February 2016.

However, cocoa revenue recorded a drop by ten percent.

The data also showed that the country’s total exports amounted to 2,489.5 million dollars as at February 2017.

This indicates over fifty percent increase from the 1,582 million dollars recorded in the same period last year. While export revenue from gold (1,176.4 million dollars) and oil (378.8 million dollars) increased by over 50 and 70 percent respectively, the country’s revenue from its cocoa yielded a drop in revenue from 688.5 million dollars to 619 million dollars between the twelve months’ period.

Meanwhile total imports dropped from 2,156.1 million dollars to 1,916.5 million dollars between February 2016 and February 2017.

Similarly, total oil and non-oil imports dropped by 7.3 and 230 million dollars respectively.

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However, the country’s total non-oil import (1,650.4 million dollars) was about six times more than its oil import (266.1 million dollars) for February 2017.

The prices received by the country for the traditional exports showed that a tonne of cocoa dropped by 34.2 percent; from 3046.6 dollars to 2003.8 dollars.

But the price of an ounce of gold increased from 1,198.8 dollars in February 2016 to 1,230.4 dollars in February 2017.

Also, the price of a barrel of oil increased by over seventy percent; from 32.1 dollars a barrel in February 2016 to about 55.8 dollars a barrel in February 2017.