Ghana has a developing mixed economy. Based on International Monetary Fund estimates, it is the 73rd-largest economy in the world and the 10th-largest economy in Africa by nominal gross domestic product. By purchasing power parity, it ranks 67th globally and 9th in Africa.

Ghana's economy is led by the services sector, followed by industry and agriculture. Recent economic growth has been supported by services, a recovery in agriculture, strong gold exports, and improved macroeconomic conditions. Although agriculture accounts for a smaller share of output than services or industry, it remains an important source of employment, while services account for the largest share of total employment.

Ghana undertook a currency redenomination in July 2007, replacing the old cedi with the Ghana cedi at a rate of 10,000 old cedis to one Ghana cedi.

Ghana is one of Africa's largest commodity exporters. It is Africa's leading gold producer and also produces cocoa, manganese ore, bauxite, diamonds, and crude petroleum. Strong gold exports contributed to a current account surplus, higher foreign-exchange reserves, and an appreciation of the cedi in 2025.

The country has also faced repeated fiscal and external-sector pressures. In April 2015, the International Monetary Fund approved a three-year Extended Credit Facility arrangement of about US$918 million to support Ghana's economic reform programme. Ghana entered another period of debt distress in the early 2020s, leading to debt restructuring and a new IMF-supported programme aimed at restoring macroeconomic stability.

Taxation Taxation in Ghana is administered by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA). The tax system includes value-added tax (VAT), personal income tax, corporate income tax, capital gains tax, withholding taxes, excise duties, customs duties, and rent income tax.

Ghana introduced VAT in 1998. Under the current VAT system, the standard VAT rate is 15%, applied alongside the 2.5% National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL) and the 2.5% Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) Levy, giving a combined effective VAT and levy rate of 20% on VAT-able goods and services. The COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy has been abolished.

The general corporate income tax rate in Ghana is 25%, although different rates apply to some sectors and business categories. Personal income tax is progressive, with rates for resident individuals rising to a top marginal rate of 35%. Capital gains tax is also levied, with gains realized by individuals generally taxed at 15% of net gains.

Rent income is taxable in Ghana. The GRA applies an 8% rate on residential premises and a 15% rate on commercial and non-residential premises.

Ghana has sought to strengthen domestic revenue mobilisation as part of its fiscal consolidation efforts. The Ministry of Finance reported that tax collections in 2024 totalled GH₵153.6 billion, exceeding the 2024 budget target of GH₵143.0 billion. The International Monetary Fund has identified revenue mobilisation as a central part of Ghana's fiscal adjustment programme, with the authorities aiming to raise the government revenue-to-GDP ratio to over 18% from 15.7% in 2022.

Development planning and industrialization

Ghana has used a series of long-term and medium-term development plans to guide economic transformation, industrialization, poverty reduction, and infrastructure development. One of the earliest post-1992 frameworks was Ghana: Vision 2020, launched in the mid-1990s as a long-term plan to accelerate economic growth, reduce poverty, expand social services, and move Ghana toward middle-income status.

The Vision 2020 framework was not fully implemented as originally designed. According to the National Development Planning Commission, the first medium-term plan under Vision 2020, known as the First Step, expired in 2000, while the subsequent steps were not operationalised. Ghana's development planning later shifted to poverty-reduction and growth frameworks, including the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy, the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda, and the Agenda for Jobs policy frameworks.

Industrialization has remained a central goal of Ghana's development strategy. Recent policy efforts have focused on increasing domestic value addition, reducing dependence on raw commodity exports, expanding manufacturing, promoting import substitution, and improving Ghana's role as a regional hub for goods and services. The Ghana CARES “Obaatanpa” programme, launched after the COVID-19 pandemic, described its medium-term transformation goals as including competitive import substitution, export promotion, economic diversification, and the leveraging of digitization.

The One District One Factory initiative, introduced in 2017, is one of Ghana's industrialization programmes. It was designed to support manufacturing and value addition by encouraging the establishment of factories across districts, using local raw materials where possible and shifting the economy away from dependence on raw material exports and imported finished goods. Other industrial-policy priorities have included industrial parks, small and medium-sized enterprises, export development, strategic anchor industries, agro-processing, automotive assembly, and light manufacturing.

Ghana's current long-term national planning framework is Vision 2057, prepared by the National Development Planning Commission. The framework is intended to guide successive medium-term development plans and annual action plans up to 2057, when Ghana will mark 100 years of independence. Its focus areas include macroeconomic stability, human capital development, science and technology, sustainable infrastructure, clean energy transition, and economic transformation.

Data

The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2026. Inflation below 5% is in green. Figures for 2026 are IMF projections.

YearGDP(in billion US$ PPP)GDP per capita(in US$ PPP)GDP(in billion US$ nominal)GDP growth(real)Inflation rate(in percent)Government debt(in % of GDP)198011.595938.70.5%50.0%n/a198112.198261.5−3.8%116.5%n/a198211.792971.0−8.3%22.5%n/a198311.487849.3−6.2%122.2%n/a198413.097018.09.4%40.0%n/a198514.21,04216.06.4%10.3%n/a198615.41,10515.16.2%24.5%n/a198716.91,18012.76.7%39.8%n/a198818.61,27013.66.5%31.4%n/a198920.21,34613.74.5%25.2%n/a199021.71,41015.93.6%37.2%17.8%199123.51,48917.84.8%18.1%17.3%199225.11,55217.74.5%10.0%21.3%199326.91,62414.54.8%24.9%34.1%199428.51,67613.43.5%24.9%50.6%199530.31,74215.74.2%59.3%47.6%199632.31,81516.64.8%44.5%42.9%199734.81,90817.05.8%24.8%45.2%199837.01,97718.55.0%19.2%37.6%199939.22,04619.24.5%12.5%51.7%200041.52,11312.33.6%25.1%74.5%200144.12,18513.13.8%32.9%57.8%200246.82,25815.24.6%14.8%54.1%200350.22,35618.85.1%26.6%49.3%200454.32,48321.85.4%12.7%38.4%200559.52,65026.46.2%15.1%31.7%200664.92,81731.05.8%11.7%17.3%200769.42,93436.54.1%10.7%21.1%200877.13,17841.39.0%16.5%23.2%200982.03,29637.15.7%13.1%25.4%201089.43,51045.47.8%6.7%32.9%2011104.03,98553.614.0%7.7%31.2%2012114.84,29655.88.4%7.1%35.5%2013125.34,57462.87.2%11.7%42.9%2014131.14,67454.72.9%15.5%50.1%2015135.14,70849.42.1%17.2%53.9%2016141.04,80256.13.4%17.5%55.9%2017155.25,17160.48.1%12.4%57.0%2018169.65,53667.36.2%9.8%62.0%2019187.66,00368.46.5%7.2%62.9%2020192.86,04770.00.5%9.9%79.1%2021214.96,60879.55.1%10.0%86.9%2022238.97,20873.93.8%31.9%92.7%2023255.57,56380.53.1%39.2%79.1%2024277.28,05183.35.8%22.9%70.3%2025302.08,613114.76.0%14.2%48.8%2026325.49,116118.34.8%5.8%53.0%

Economic sectors Agriculture

In 2013 agriculture employed 53.6% of Ghana's total labor force.Clark, Nancy L. "Agriculture" (and subchapters). A Country Study: Ghana (La Verle Berry, editor). Library of Congress Federal Research Division (November 1994). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Agribusiness accounts for a small fraction of the gross domestic product. The main harvested crops are corn, plantain, rice, millet, sorghum, cassava and yam. Unlike the agricultural livestock, forestry and fishing sectors, the crop sector is key to the Ghanaian agricultural industry.

Ghana produced in 2018:

20.8 million tons of cassava (4th largest producer in the world, second only to Nigeria, Thailand and Congo) 7.8 million tonnes of yam (2nd largest producer in the world, second only to Nigeria) 4.1 million tons of plantain (2nd largest producer in the world, just behind Congo) 2.6 million tons of palm oil (8th largest producer in the world) 2.3 million tons of maize 1.4 million tons of taro (4th largest producer in the world, second only to Nigeria, China and Cameroon) 947 thousand tons of cocoa (2nd largest producer in the world, second only to Ivory Coast) 769 thousand tons of rice 753 thousand tons of orange (19th largest producer in the world) 713 thousand tons of pineapple (11th largest producer in the world) 521 thousand tons of peanut

In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products, like sweet potato (151 thousand tons), natural rubber (23 thousand tons) and tobacco (2.3 thousand tons).

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is an important part of Ghana's industrial sector, although the economy remains more heavily weighted toward services and primary commodity exports. World Bank data show that manufacturing value added accounted for about 10% of Ghana's gross domestic product in 2024. Ghana's main manufacturing activities include agro-processing, food and beverages, cocoa processing, textiles and footwear, cement and construction materials, plastics, pharmaceuticals, metal and aluminium products, and vehicle assembly.

Agro-processing is one of the central components of Ghanaian manufacturing because of the country's agricultural base. The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre identifies agro-processing, cocoa processing, textiles and footwear, and light manufacturing as important areas for industrial development. Ghana's manufacturing base is linked to domestic agricultural production, including cocoa, cassava, rice, tomatoes, poultry, and other food crops, but local processing capacity remains uneven in several subsectors.

Government industrial policy has aimed to expand local production, reduce import dependence, and increase domestic value addition. The manufacturing sector has been supported through programmes such as industrial parks, import-substitution initiatives, the One District One Factory programme, and efforts to strengthen agro-processing, textiles and garments, iron and steel, wood processing, and other light manufacturing activities.

Ghana has also developed a vehicle assembly industry under the Ghana Automotive Development Programme. The Ghana Automotive Development Centre lists several bonafide assemblers under the programme, including Peugeot, Foton, Nissan, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Kantanka, Changan, ZX Auto, Toyota, Suzuki, Honda, Kia, Ashok Leyland, and Great Wall Motors. The programme is part of Ghana's wider strategy to develop the country as a competitive automotive assembly hub in West Africa.

Despite these developments, Ghana's manufacturing sector continues to face constraints, including competition from imports, limited local processing capacity in some industries, financing constraints, energy and infrastructure costs, and exposure to exchange-rate movements. The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre has noted that demand for manufactured products in Ghana exceeds domestic supply in several areas, requiring imports to fill the gap.

Mining

Tourism

The Ministry of Tourism has placed great emphasis upon further tourism support and development. Tourism contributed to 4.9% of GDP in 2009, attracting around 500,000 visitors. Tourist destinations include Ghana's many castles and forts, national parks, beaches, nature reserves, landscapes and World Heritage buildings and sites.