IMF Business News

Ghana: Can One of Africa’s Best-Governed Countries Beat the Curse of Black Gold?

Offshore Oil DrillingAs Ghana prepares to pump oil in the second half of 2010, hopes are rising, both among hard-pressed market traders at home and in the far-flung Diaspora, where Ghanaians are quitting jobs in American banks to head back to an optimistic homeland.

Oil was found off Ghana’s coast in 2007 and, even without further discoveries, is now expected to earn an average of $1.2 billion in annual state revenues for almost two decades.

For a country with 23m people and a GDP of $16 billion, it could be a big boost – or a crippling blight.

Perky economic growth, a decent human-rights record, and changes of government by the ballot box in 2000 and 2008 have made Ghana one of the past decade’s success stories in Africa. Read the rest of this entry »

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Private Equity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA) Update

Private EquityThe Sub-Saharan African opportunity represents one of the biggest growth stories in emerging markets private equity.

Once generally overlooked by investors, fundraising activity in Sub-Saharan Africa has almost tripled from US$800 million in 2005 to over US$2.2 billion in 2008. During the first half of 2009, fundraising for Sub-Saharan Africa reached US$1 billion, equivalent to the same period one year prior. Led by South Africa, private equity investments in the region totaled US$2.9 billion in 2008, down slightly from a peak of US$3.4 billion in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

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VIDEO: Doing Business In Africa – Ghana – Part 3 – Financial Sector, Real Estate, and Information Technology (IT)

VIDEO: Doing Business in Africa – Ghana – Part 2 – Oil, Agriculture, and Gold | VIDEO: Doing Business in Africa – Ghana – Part 1 – Pending Oil Wealth | Watch more videos on Ghana

Ghana Stock Exchange | Databank

Source(s): CNBC Africa

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Ghana’s President Appeals for Homegrown Growth

Accra, Ghana

Accra, Ghana

Africa must ditch its overreliance on commodity exports and develop a “homegrown” model of economic growth centered on regional commerce and domestic demand, Ghana’s president John Atta Mills has urged.

John Atta Mills said that the continent must seize the “opportunity” thrown up by the global economic crisis to adopt a new development formula that centers on the regional private sector, as a catastrophic collapse in exports torpedoes the region’s growth prospects.

“This is the time for us to test our ingenuity and look inwards,” John Atta Mills said. “We need to look at the global economic downturn as an opportunity to find ways to be self-sufficient.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Africa – A Booming Business Opportunity for US Investors, Says US Corporate Council on Africa (CCA)

US Investing in AfricaIn one of the toughest global economic downturns in decades, the African continent continues to be one of the leading foreign direct investment destinations for U.S. businesses, according to the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA).

In fact, recent data released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), reveals that while other regions of the world are experiencing economic decline, Africa has experienced significant economic growth over the past five years and is expected to maintain a positive growth rate of 3.5% for 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

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