Ghana's economy is expected to grow steadily, reaching around 5.0% growth in the coming years.

This matches many predictions from global research groups.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has a positive outlook for the country’s economy.

Despite challenges like ongoing efforts to reduce the budget deficit and a dry spell affecting agriculture, the IMF noted that strong economic growth in the second quarter of 2024 shows better-than-expected results.

As a result, the IMF has raised its growth forecast for 2024 to 4.0%, up from the earlier estimate of 3.1%.

The IMF also predicts that inflation will hit 18% by the end of 2024, higher than the previous forecast of 15%. This is mainly due to price increases caused by a weaker cedi and the ongoing dry weather.

“Continued tight monetary policy will bring inflation back to the Bank of Ghana’s target band (8±2 per cent) by end-2025,” the Fund said.

The IMF explained that continued efforts to reduce the budget deficit and complete the debt restructuring will help keep Ghana’s public debt on a sustainable path.

It also forecasted that Ghana’s current account deficit will stay balanced until 2026, and international reserves are expected to cover three months of imports.

However, the IMF warned that there are still significant risks to this outlook. On the external front, it highlighted that worsening regional conflicts, along with the effects of the Ukraine and Middle East crises, or fluctuations in commodity prices, could harm Ghana by increasing inflation from imports and causing investors to be more cautious.

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“If protracted, weak cocoa harvest could affect exports and growth prospects. More generally, Ghana is subject to risks related to climate shocks. On the domes­tic side, policy slippages ahead of the end-2024 general election or during the political transition could undermine macroeconom­ic stability, deteriorate domestic financing conditions and the debt dynamics, and complicate debt restructuring discussions with Ghana’s remaining external com­mercial creditors, it indicated.