Ghana's debt narrows to 60 pct of GDP in February

ACCRA, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Ghana's debt stock reduced to 60 percent in relation to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as of February, relative to 69.8 percent recorded as of December, says the Bank of Ghana, the central bank.

The debt stock had risen to 145 billion Ghana cedis (31.29 billion dollars) in February relative to 142.5 billion cedis (30.75 billion dollars) in December, according to official figures released by the central bank.

The country's economy grew 8.5 percent in 2017, according to the provisional figures released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) last month.

The growth was mainly attributed to higher performance of oil and gas production and a more stable power supply since January 2016.

Ghana borrowed 2 billion dollars from the sale of its Eurobonds for refinancing some of its existing debts and for budget financing earlier this month.

Half of the total amount was a 10-year bond while the other half was a 30-year bond, thus making Ghana the first Sub-Saharan African country to issue a 30-year Eurobond successfully, besides South Africa.

The West African primary commodity exporting country expects to rebase its economy by next month and analysts believe this rebasing would leave a lot more fiscal space for the economy as the debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to reduce considerably. Enditem