Ghana Growth Rate Probably Fell as Oil Output Misses Target
January 11, 2012, 12:11 AM ESTBy Moses Mozart Dzawu
(Updates with change of date release in second paragraph.)
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Ghana’s economy probably grew at a slower pace in the third quarter as oil output in the West African nation missed targets and farming production eased.
Growth in gross domestic product slowed to 13.8 percent in the three months through September from 16.4 percent in the second quarter, according to the median estimate of three economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The statistics office, which was due to publish the figures tomorrow, delayed the release until Jan. 25, Ebo Duncan, director of economic and industrial statistics, said today.
“Oil production did not materialize,” Stephen Bailey- Smith, an emerging-markets strategist at Standard Bank in London said by phone yesterday. “It still hovered around 85,000 barrels per day against an initial 120,000 barrels per day estimate.”
Ghana began pumping oil for export from the Jubilee field in December 2010, spurring growth in the world’s second-largest cocoa producer. Tullow Oil Plc said on Nov. 9 production at the field had been below expectations because of “temporary technical issues.”
Farming output, apart from cocoa, also eased in the third quarter, undermining economic growth, Joe Abbey, an economist at Accra-based Centre for Policy Analysis, said by phone. Growth in factory production probably accelerated, Yvonne Mhango, a sub- Saharan African economist at Renaissance Capital in Johannesburg, said in an e-mail.
Economic growth will likely slow to 9.4 percent this year from 13.6 percent in 2011, Finance Minster Kwabena Duffuor said in November. The central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 12.5 percent for a third meeting on Dec. 21.
The statistics office revised second-quarter GDP data on Oct. 18, halving the growth rate from 33.5 percent previously, after finding errors in its calculation.
--Editors: Emily Bowers, Nasreen Seria, Karl Maier
To contact reporter on this story: Moses Mozart Dzawu in Accra at mdzawu@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
