Ghana’s total debt stock hits GH¢138.8bn

New figures released by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) show that the country’s total debt stock has hit GH¢138.8 billion cedis as of November 2017, representing 68.7 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

It shows a marginal decrease from September’s figure of 138.9 billion cedis compared to November’s figure of 138.8 billion cedis

The figures, however, show that the debt stock decreased in October to 137.6 billion cedis before going up to 138.8 billion cedis in November.

The external component of Ghana’s debt stands at 16.9 billion dollars, equivalent to 74.7 billion cedis, while the domestic component of the debt is at 64.2 billion cedis.

Meanwhile, government has indicated through its issuance calendar that it will borrow 11 billion cedis in the first quarter of 2018.

Banking Sector performance

In the Banking sector, the figures show a marginal improvement in the total Non-Performing Loans (NPL) of banks from 22.9 percent in October to 22.7 percent in December.

Meanwhile, total deposits in the banking sector hit 58.3 billion cedis in November 2017 compared to 52.7 billion cedis for the same period in 2016.

In addition, total advances made by banks by December 2017, reached 37.7 billion cedis compared to 35.6 billion cedis in 2016.

In terms of annual growth, there was a decline from 18.6 percent in 2016 to 5.9 percent in December 2017.

The BoG data also shows that assets in the banking industry stand at 93.2 billion cedis, while the 2017 end-of-year cedi depreciation against the dollar was at 4.9 percent

External Earnings

Total earnings from the country’s traditional exports were at $13.7 billion at the end of December 2017.

The figure indicated a rise of $2.6 billion from what the country got for the same period in 2016.

Earnings from gold hit $5.7 billion compared to $4.9 billion the previous year. Earnings from cocoa were at $2.7 billion.

Crude Oil exports went up from $1.3 billion to $3 billion at the end of December 2017.

Meanwhile, Ghana’s total import bill as at the end of 2017 stood at $12.6 billion.