What Ghana sells, what it buys, and what it makes
In 2025 Ghana exported $32.0bn of goods and imported $20.5bn, a surplus of $11.5bn, the largest in the five years GSS's trade table covers. Gold was 64% of exports, up from 35% in 2021. In the twelve months to March 2026 the surplus was $12.3bn. Rebuilt from GSS's figures with each update.
Exports pulled far ahead of imports in 2025
From 2021 to 2025 exports grew 116% and imports 15%. Ghana's trade in goods went from a deficit of $3.0bn in 2021 to a surplus of $11.5bn in 2025. The same year the cedi strengthened: a dollar cost 12.56 cedis on average in 2025, against 14.18 in 2024. These figures can't say how much of that the surplus explains: services, investment income and capital flows aren't in them.
Merchandise exports and imports, US dollars, each month. Hover or tap for any month and its balance. Source: GSS StatsBank, trade table.
Gold is now 64% of what Ghana sells
Gold exports rose from $5.1bn in 2021 to $20.5bn in 2025. Ghana shipped twice as much (103 to 206 tonnes), and each kilogram fetched twice as much ($49.7k to $99.8k). Cocoa earned 78% more even though shipments fell 29%: the price per kilogram went from $2.91 to $7.29. Oil and fuel exports fell from $3.9bn to $2.8bn, with 33% less shipped.
Merchandise exports by product group, US dollars, whole years 2021 and 2025. Shares are of all exports ($14.8bn and $32.0bn). Source: GSS StatsBank, trade table.
On the other side of the ledger, Ghana spent $5.2bn importing fuels and oils in 2025 (25% of imports), against $2.7bn in 2021. It sells crude oil and buys refined fuel, so the two lines can move apart.
What Ghana sells has got dearer faster than what it buys
GSS's unit value indices divide each trade flow's value by its volume. Set against each other, they show how many imports a unit of exports buys. In the first quarter of 2026 it bought twice as many as in the first quarter of 2021.
Terms of trade: GSS's export unit value index divided by its import unit value index, quarterly, the first quarter of 2021 = 100.
Growth, month by month
GSS's monthly indicator of economic growth put the economy 5.1% larger in May 2026 than a year earlier, against an average of 5.9% through 2025. Services grew 7.2%, industry 4.2% and agriculture 3.6%. Industrial production, a narrower quarterly measure, was +1.9% on a year in the third quarter of 2025: manufacturing +4.3%, mining +0.1%.
Year-on-year growth of GSS's monthly indicator of economic growth (2023 = 100), by sector. The dashed line is the whole economy. It starts in 2024 because 2023 is the base year, with no year before it to grow from.
Industrial production, change on a year
Where these numbers come from, and what they leave out
Trade. GSS's merchandise trade table on StatsBank: exports and imports by product group, in US dollars and kilograms, monthly from January 2021 to March 2026; whole years are the sum of their months. Prices of trade. GSS's export and import unit value indices, quarterly to the first quarter of 2026. Growth. GSS's monthly indicator of economic growth to May 2026, and its index of industrial production to the third quarter of 2025. The cedi. The Bank of Ghana's mid-rate, yearly average. Only values that pass TARIN's checks are used.
What it leaves out. These are goods crossing the border as customs records them. Services, remittances, the profits foreign mining and oil firms send home, and loans aren't in them, so a goods surplus isn't the same as dollars staying in Ghana; GSS's balance of payments table, which would show those, stopped in 2024. Value per kilogram mixes price with changes in what is shipped (cocoa beans against cocoa butter, say). And StatsBank runs some months behind GSS's releases.
Downloads. trade-monthly.csv (exports and imports each month), trade-exports.csv (exports by product group, with tonnes and value per kilogram) and trade.json (everything on this page). Every series is also in the catalogue, with its checks and source file.