Ghana’s growth rate for the year 2020 has been revised to 5.6% as against the October 2019 forecast of 6%, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) January 2020 World Economic Outlook Report has revealed.

This is against the World Bank’s forecast of 6.8%, which would make Ghana the 3rd-fastest growing economy in sub-Saharan Africa. 

The 5.6% Gross Domestic Product is, however, higher than the sub-Saharan Africa average growth rate of 3.5 per cent in 2020–21 from 3.3 per cent in 2019.

But in 2020 and 2021, the growth rate is forecast at lows of 4.0% and 3.7%, respectively. 

This is against the World Bank’s 5.2% and 4.6%, respectively.

In these years, the GDP for oil and gas would be negative. But analysts would be happy that the growth would be led by the non-oil sectors.

The Bretton Wood institution on Monday, 20 January 2020 published its world economic outlook report for the year. 

In South Africa, the growth rate was revised down by 0.3 percentage points to 0.8% in 2020.

Structural constraints and deteriorating public finances are the major factors impacting South Africa’s growth prospects negatively.

The IMF forecasts a GDP growth rate of 2.5% for Nigeria.

In sub-Saharan Africa, growth is expected to strengthen to 3.5 per cent in 2020–21 (from 3.3 per cent in 2019). 

The projection is a 0.1 percentage point lower than that forecast by the October World Economic Outlook report for 2020 and 0.2 percentage points weaker for 2021. 

Global growth is projected to rise from an estimated 2.9 per cent in 2019 to 3.3 per cent in 2020 and 3.4 per cent for 2021—a downward revision of 0.1 percentage point for 2019 and 2020.

On the positive side, market sentiment has been boosted by tentative signs that manufacturing activity and global trade are bottoming out, a broad-based shift toward accommodative monetary policy, intermittent favorable news on US-China trade negotiations, and diminished fears of a no-deal Brexit.