EIU: Ghana's economy to grow at 7%

The Ghanaian economy is expected to grow at seven percent in 2017 fuelled by improved electricity supply and oil and gas boost, the Economic and Intelligence Unit (EIU) has said.

The United Kingdom-based research body made this known in its latest review of economies on the African continent.

It said: "While Nigeria and South Africa – by far the two biggest economies – will continue to keep the average GDP growth down to a moderate 2.6 percent; there are a number of stars.

"Economies such as Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda all feature in our predicted list of the 20 fastest growing economies in 2017.

"Another in that list is Ghana, which should grow by 7 percent in 2017 due to rising oil and gas production and a boost to the industrial sector from increasing electricity generation.”

EIU's growth projection of seven percent corroborates the IMF and the World Bank's projections of the Ghanaian economy.

The two institutions had predicted that Ghana's economy will grow at 8 percent in 2017 from 3.4 percent in 2016.

In addition, the EIU said the incoming administration of the New Patriotic Party led by Nana Akufo Addo will face challenges in implementing its one-district-one-factory policy.

It said: “A tight fiscal picture will restrain some of his more grandiose ambitions such as building hundreds of new factories.

"Meanwhile, new oil and gas output will support gradually improving economic prospects in the coming year and beyond.”

However, the EIU also noted that businesses are eyeing early moves to ease taxes as promised in the NPP manifesto.

“Other policy priorities will be the NPP’s much-heralded industrialisation agenda. It is ambitious and the NPP has been emphasising the role the private sector will play. Therefore businesses will be eyeing early moves to ease taxes and regulations, and the IMF will be looking at least for a continuation, or even a tightening of fiscal discipline," the EIU said.