By Maxwell Akalaare Adombila and Christian Akorlie
ACCRA (Reuters) – Ghana’s economic growth slowed to 2.0% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2023 from 3.2% in the previous quarter, driven by a decline in the industrial sector, its statistics agency said on Wednesday.
The West African country is grappling with its worst economic crisis in a generation, with a sharply weaker cedi currency and double-digit price rises for consumers.
Contributing to the third-quarter slowdown were contractions in sub-sectors of industry such as mining and construction, the statistics agency said. Agriculture made a positive contribution, even though cocoa farming is having an unusually bad season.
Meanwhile producer inflation slowed to 2.0% year-on-year in November from a revised 9.7% in October, the statistics office said separately on Wednesday.
Consumer inflation also slowed last month, to 26.4% from 35.2% in October.
Ghana is negotiating a debt restructuring deal with its official creditors. It hopes to reach a deal soon to secure the next $600 million from the International Monetary Fund under a $3 billion rescue package.
(Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Maxwell Akalaare Adombila; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Alexander Winning and Alex Richardson)
