Ghana’s international reserves excluding gold is expected to grow by 16.8% this year to $9.5 billion.

This is a revision of an earlier forecast by Fitch Solutions, which pegged the end-year reserves at $8.8 billion.

According to the research arm of ratings agency, Fitch, the reserves will be equivalent to 4.2 months of import cover.

This means the country will have a little above four months to take care of imports with the foreign exchange reserves when there is a shock.

However, the reserves is lower than the Bank of Ghana’s gross reserves estimate of $11.02 billion in the first half of the year.

But, the expected growth in the reserves from last year could help minimize the recent depreciation of the cedi. That would nevertheless depend on the Bank of Ghana’s policy of using the reserves to intervene regularly in the forex market.

The increase in the reserves is as a result of robust global growth which has triggered demand for the country’s export commodities particularly oil and cocoa.

Fitch Solutions also said exports are likely to pick-up relatively swiftly, on the back of rebounding growth in major markets – notably China, which is one of Ghana’s single largest export market. This is expected to result in an improve terms of trade.

The foreign reserves is expected to rise further to $10.6 billion next year, equivalent to 4.3 months of import cover.

Country record trade surplus in half-year 2021

According to the Bank of Ghana, total exports for the first half of the year stood at $7.5 billion, whilst imports stood at $6.75 billion, leaving a trade surplus of $837.5 million

In terms of the traditional export commodities, gold exports for the first six months of 2021 stood at $2.66 billion, whilst cocoa inched up to $1.74 billion. Crude oil exports was estimated at $1.75 billion in June 2021.

Inward remittances also rose up to $2.15 billion in June 2021. This is compared to $1.03 billion in March this year.