Ghana’s economy will see a 7 percent growth in 2017, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), has predicted.

The UK based industry and management analysis said five years ago that there was a lot of optimism around Africa’s apparent economic revival, but the end of the commodities boom put an end to the hope that this was an unavoidable trend.

However, in its latest review of economies on the African continent, chief economist Simon Baptist observed that whilst Nigeria and South Africa are by distance the continent’s two largest economies, they will continue to keep the average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth down to a moderate 2.6 percent.

“There are a number of stars,” said Baptist pointing out that “Economies such as Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda all feature in our predicted list of the 20 fastest growing economies in 2017.

"Another in that list is Ghana, which should grow by 7 percent in 2017 due to rising oil and gas production and a boost to the industrial sector from increasing electricity generation.”

He continued that “this year sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP growth rate will be even lower than that of the beleaguered Eurozone, a shocking out-turn given the catch-up potential, and of course, a tragedy for many Africans. We are hopeful, however, that 2017 is going to be slightly better.

"This is partly due to rises in many commodity prices, but also continued gains in some of the region’s smaller economies.”

source:starrfmonline.com