The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Resident Representative in Ghana, Dr Adrian Alter, has described the country’s economic recovery as “quite impressive”, saying key macroeconomic indicators have performed better than initially expected under the IMF-supported programme.

Dr Alter attributed the recovery to strong policy reforms implemented by the government, as well as favourable external conditions, particularly higher gold prices.

Speaking in an interview with Bernard Avle on Channel One TV’s The Point of View on Monday, August 24, Dr Alter said Ghana’s recovery had been faster and stronger than the IMF initially projected.

“Ghana’s recovery has been quite impressive, faster and better than expected. I would say all macroeconomic indicators outperform initial expectations in 2023, and that is quite, quite impressive,” he said.

According to him, inflation had fallen significantly from more than 50% to below 5%, while the country’s international reserves had also improved considerably.

“On macroeconomic stability, inflation came down quite significantly from more than 50% to now less than 5%. Reserves were rebuilt quite markedly from one month of import coverage to more than four months of import coverage,” he said.

Dr Alter said economic growth had also remained resilient, recording 6% real growth in 2025 and 6.4% in the first quarter of 2026.

He noted that the growth was particularly significant because it was broad-based across all sectors of the economy.

“Growth has been resilient and actually rebounded. We had 6% real growth in 2025. We had 6.4% in the first quarter of this year, and what is important is that growth is now broad-based across all sectors,” he said.

According to him, debt restructuring and structural reforms under the IMF programme had also played a key role in restoring macroeconomic stability.

“Debt restructuring has been one of the key pillars, and structural reforms. Those helped a lot with macroeconomic stability,” he added.

The IMF Resident Representative said the stronger-than-expected performance was also driven significantly by higher gold prices, which boosted exports and strengthened Ghana’s current account position.

He said gold exports now account for about 60% of Ghana’s total exports, contributing to stronger foreign exchange inflows and faster accumulation of international reserves.

“If you are only talking about the outperformance per se, you can see that gold prices are the ones that were actually much higher than expected. And that basically led to higher exports, particularly gold exports, which are now about 60% of total exports,” Dr Alter said.

He explained that the stronger external position contributed to faster-than-expected reserve accumulation and improved foreign exchange liquidity.

Under the IMF programme, Ghana had targeted three months of import cover by the end of the programme. However, Dr Alter said the country had already reached approximately four months of import cover by the end of 2025.

“Our target, for instance, at the end of the ECF programme was to achieve three months of import coverage. We were at the end of 2025 already at about four months of import coverage,” he said.

He said the favourable terms-of-trade developments had also supported the appreciation of the Ghanaian cedi, increased foreign exchange liquidity and contributed to a faster-than-expected reduction in public debt.

The comments come after the IMF Executive Board approved the final review of Ghana’s US$3 billion Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme on July 28.

The approval paved the way for a final disbursement of approximately US$371 million, bringing total disbursements under the three-year programme to about US$3 billion.

The approval marked the conclusion of the IMF-supported programme, which began in May 2023 after Ghana’s severe economic crisis in 2022.

The government has subsequently decided to transition to the IMF’s Policy Coordination Instrument (PCI) as it seeks to consolidate the gains made under the ECF programme.