Ghana’s projected real economic growth for 2025 has been revised upward by Fitch Solutions, moving from an earlier estimate of 4.2% to 4.9%.
The revised forecast comes on the back of what the analytics firm described as stronger-than-anticipated economic performance in the first quarter of the year.
New figures released by the Ghana Statistical Service on June 6, 2025, reveal that the country’s real GDP growth surged to 5.3% in the first quarter of 2025, up from 3.6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2024. This exceeds Fitch Solutions’ earlier projection of 3.5% growth.
“The Q1 growth spurt was primarily driven by stronger agricultural output, particularly in crop production and fishing. The mining & quarrying sector also performed better than in the previous quarter, despite continued weakness in the hydrocarbons sector, pointing to growing momentum in gold extraction amid elevated prices. In addition, faster growth in domestic trade also supported headline economic growth, indicating improving consumer activity across the economy,” the UK-based research firm noted.
It further projected that consumer spending will remain a key growth driver throughout the rest of the year, especially as the appreciation of the cedi helps to lower inflation.
Fitch also linked Ghana’s economic outlook to rising gold prices, which it said had been pushed even higher by international uncertainties, including evolving trade policies from US President Donald Trump.
“Indeed, our Metals & Mining team forecasts that gold prices will average a record US$3,100 per ounce this year, 29.7% higher than in 2024. As Africa’s largest gold producer, historically high gold prices have already boosted Ghana’s international reserves to near-record levels of US$7.9 billion as of April [2025],” the report stated. “This has led to a significant appreciation of the Ghanaian cedi, which strengthened by approximately 50% against the US dollar over April-May, emerging as the world’s best-performing currency in the year to date,” it added.
The firm observed that Ghana’s reliance on imports of essential goods such as petrol, vehicles, rice, and pharmaceuticals means the strengthened cedi is likely to relieve pressure on domestic prices in the months ahead.
