Challenges in Promoting Economic Growth of Ghana Through Value Added Exports

Abstract

Ghana is endowed with natural resources such as gold, cocoa, crude oil, and other factor endowments that gives the country a comparative advantage in trade. Ghana, a low-middle income country, is the second largest producer of gold in Africa and 11th in the world, as well as the second largest exporter of cocoa in the world. With all the factor endowments and export potential however, the country exports basically raw materials with little value addition and therefore is deprived of the full benefits accruing to trade and exports.This paper employs an empirical method and applies the Ricardian Model of Comparative Advantage using available secondary data to explore the importance of exports to the economic growth of the country and certain challenges of value addition. The findings show that exports promote economic growth as well as that value addition can be beneficial in earnings and needs government attention in following the recommendations therein.

The Relationship Between Fiscal Deficit and Current Account Deficit in the Case of the West African Monetary Zone: A Bivariate DSEM/RDSEM Approach

“…Nigeria's economic clout has been sizeable, constituting about 60% of the entire West African economy with crude oil export as its major source of revenue (African Development Bank, 2018;Khobai, Kolisi, & Moyo, 2018). Ghana's economy has been driven by cocoa and gold exports, and until recently, crude oil (Ibrahim & Liu, 2018). Commodity prices have determined the performances of Nigeria's and Ghana's fiscal and current account balances because very little value is added to exportable commodities and would largely suffer price fragilities.…”