Ghana's total debt stock hits 200 billion

The country’s total debt stock has now hit GHS200 billion as at the end of May 2019. 

This was contained in the Bank of Ghana’s summary of financial and economic data that reviewed the health of the economy. 

Details of the debt numbers

The new debt stock figure means that since May 2018 the total debt stock has gone up by some 45.9 billion cedis.

In two months or since the last time that the data was released in March, the total debt stock has gone up by some GHS2 billion. The GHS200 billion debt now represents about 58% of the total value of the economy or 58% of GDP.  

Breakdown of the debt numbers 

The Bank of Ghana’s data showed that out of the GHS200 billion total debt stock, external debt accounted for GHS105 billion of the debt, expressed in dollar terms that about  $20 billion. This was about 30.6% of GDP.

The funds that were borrowed locally, or domestic debt, was GHS94.6 billion, representing  27.5% of Ghana’s GDP.

Reasons for the debt stock increase?

The increase in the debt stock over the last two months can be attributed to the cedis' marginal depreciation and recent funds advanced to clean up the banking and non-banking sectors of the economy.

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