A new report by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has identified Cocoa, gold and crude oil as the dominant commodities in Ghana’s export trade in 2022.
The 2022 Trade Vulnerability Report launched by the GSS on Tuesday indicated that the three items contributed 80 percent of the West African country’s total commodity exports.
“Gold contributed 37.5 percent to the country’s total exports, mineral fuels and oils accounted for 30.6 percent, while cocoa beans and cocoa products contributed 12.4 percent of total exports,” said the report.
On export destinations, the report said the yellow metal accounted for 35.5 percent of all of the country’s exports to Asia, 46.1 percent to Africa and 50 percent to Europe.
Mineral fuels and oils constituted 80.9 percent of exports to North America and 42.6 percent of products to Europe, while cocoa formed 22.1 percent of all exports to Europe, 7.6 percent of exports to Asia and 13.1 percent to North America.
The report named four countries, Switzerland, China, South Africa, and Canada as the destinations for more than half of Ghana’s exports and sources of more than half of the country’s imports as well in 2022.
On the reverse, the report said mineral fuels and oils accounted for 26.8 percent of total imports. machinery and electrical equipment contributed 13.3 percent, with chemical products accounting for 10.7 percent of the imports.
On trade balance, the Trade Deficit Report said Ghana’s trade deficit stood at 4.5 billion Ghana cedis (about 399 million U.S. dollars) , with imports and exports of 148.6 billion cedis (13.9 billion dollars) and 144.1 cedis (12.79 billion dollars) respectively.
Ghana is Africa’s largest gold producer, jumping 32 percent in gold production from 80 metric tons (2.8 million ounces) in 2021 to 106 metric tons (3.7 million ounces) in 2022 due to concurrent growth in the output of both large and small-scale sectors. Together, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana account for more than 60 percent of the world’s annual cocoa output, as Ghana depends heavily on syndicated loans from the international credit market for cocoa purchases to shore up foreign reserves ahead of the yuletide.