The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Resident Representative in Ghana, Dr. Adrian Alter, has lauded the country’s economic recovery as “quite impressive,” noting that key macroeconomic indicators have outperformed expectations under the IMF‑supported programme.
Dr. Alter attributed the stronger‑than‑anticipated rebound to decisive policy reforms by government and favourable external conditions, particularly elevated gold prices. Speaking on The Point of View with Bernard Avle on Channel One TV, he emphasised that Ghana’s recovery has been faster and more robust than initially projected.
“Ghana’s recovery has been quite impressive, faster and better than expected. I would say all macroeconomic indicators outperform initial expectations in 2023, and that is quite, quite impressive,” he remarked. He highlighted that inflation had dropped sharply from above 50% to below 5%, while international reserves had strengthened significantly.
“On macroeconomic stability, inflation came down quite significantly from more than 50% to now less than 5%. Reserves were rebuilt quite markedly from one month of import coverage to more than four months of import coverage,” he said. Dr Alter said economic growth had also remained resilient, recording 6% real growth in 2025 and 6.4% in the first quarter of 2026. He noted that the growth was particularly significant because it was broad-based across all sectors of the economy.
“Growth has been resilient and actually rebounded. We had 6% real growth in 2025. We had 6.4% in the first quarter of this year, and what is important is that growth is now broad-based across all sectors,” he said. According to him, debt restructuring and structural reforms under the IMF programme had also played a key role in restoring macroeconomic stability.
“Debt restructuring has been one of the key pillars, and structural reforms. Those helped a lot with macroeconomic stability,” he added. The IMF Resident Representative said the stronger-than-expected performance was also driven significantly by higher gold prices, which boosted exports and strengthened Ghana’s current account position.
He said gold exports now account for about 60% of Ghana’s total exports, contributing to stronger foreign exchange inflows and faster accumulation of international reserves. “If you are only talking about the outperformance per se, you can see that gold prices are the ones that were actually much higher than expected. And that basically led to higher exports, particularly gold exports, which are now about 60% of total exports,” Dr Alter said.
He explained that the stronger external position contributed to faster-than-expected reserve accumulation and improved foreign exchange liquidity. Under the IMF programme, Ghana had targeted three months of import cover by the end of the programme. However, Dr Alter said the country had already reached approximately four months of import cover by the end of 2025.
“Our target at the end of the ECF programme was to secure three months of import coverage. By the close of 2025, however, we had already achieved about four months,” he noted.
He explained that favourable terms‑of‑trade developments had supported the appreciation of the cedi, boosted foreign exchange liquidity, and accelerated the reduction of public debt.
His comments followed the IMF Executive Board’s approval of the final review of Ghana’s US$3 billion Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme on July 28. The decision cleared the way for a final disbursement of approximately US$371 million, bringing total disbursements under the three‑year arrangement to about US$3 billion.
The approval marked the conclusion of the IMF‑supported programme, which began in May 2023 in response to Ghana’s severe economic crisis in 2022. The government has since opted to transition to the IMF’s Policy Coordination Instrument (PCI) to consolidate the gains achieved under the ECF.
Source: Leticia Osei
