IMF revises Ghana’s growth rate from 5.2% to 3.2% for 2022

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised Ghana’s growth rate from 5.2 percent to 3.6 percent for the 2022 fiscal year.

According to a Joy Business report, the IMF in its recent economic outlook report expressed concern that countries such as Ghana will be impacted by the effects of the ongoing economic challenges in developed countries.

It however said the situation will likely see the economies of developed countries experience contraction if measures are not adopted to salvage the general gloom in the global economy.

“Global economic activity is experiencing a broad-based and sharper-than-expected slowdown, with inflation higher than seen in several decades”, the report said.

“The cost-of-living crisis, tightening financial conditions in most regions, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic all weigh heavily on the outlook. Global growth is forecast to slow from 6.0 percent in 2021 to 3.2 percent in 2022 and 2.7 percent in 2023. This is the weakest growth profile since 2001 except for the global financial crisis and the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic,” it added.

Despite the forecast, the IMF has cautioned that decisions by central banks in developed countries in hopes of checking inflationary pressures will rather impact economies such as Ghana’s along with fallouts from the Russia-Ukraine tensions.

Meanwhile, the latest forecast by the IMF for Ghana is slightly lower than the 3.7 percent growth rate announced by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.

He said this when he delivered the Mid-Year Budget Review before Parliament on July 25, 2022.

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For the 2023 fiscal year, the IMF in its latest outlook said economic growth will slow down to 2.8 percent and is expected to peak strongly in 2027 to reach 6.8 percent.