Country Facts - Ghana

The People

Nationality

Ghanaian(s)

Ethnic Composition

Black African	98.5%
Akan 44%
Moshi-Dagomba 16%
Ewe 13%
Ga 8%
Gurma 3%
Yoruba 1%
European and Other	1.5%

Religious Composition

Christian	63%
Indigenous beliefs	21%
Muslim	16%

Languages Spoken

English (official), African languages (including Akan, Moshi-Dagomba, Ewe, and Ga).

Education and Literacy

Ghana's overall adult literacy is 64.5 percent. Among males it is 75.9 percent and females 53.5 percent (1995 est.).

Labor Force

Total: 9 million (2000 est.) by occupation:

Services	25%
Industry	15%
Agriculture	60%

(1999)

Geography

Land Mass Total

92,456 sq mi (239,460 sq km)

Land

89,166 sq mi (230,940 sq km)

Water

3,289 sq mi (8,520 sq km)

Land Boundaries

Total: 1,301 mi (2,094 km)
Border countries: Burkina Faso 341 mi (549 km), Cote d'Ivoire 415 mi (668 km), Togo 544 mi (877 km).

Coastline

334 mi (539 km)

Maritime claim

Contiguous zone: 24 nm
Continental shelf: 200 nm
Exclusive economic zone: 200 nm
Territorial sea: 12 nm

Climate/Weather

Tropical; warm and comparatively dry along southeast coast; hot and humid in southwest; hot and dry in north.

Terrain

Mostly low plains with dissected plateau in south-central area.

Elevation extremes

Lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 ft (0 m)
Highest point: Mount Afadjato 2,887 ft (880 m)

Natural Resources

Gold, timber, industrial diamonds, bauxite, manganese, fish, rubber, hydropower.

Land use

Arable land	16%
Permanent crops	7%
Other	77%

(1998)

Natural hazards

Dry, dusty, harmattan winds occur from January to March; droughts.

Environment - current issues

Recent drought in north severely affecting agricultural activities; deforestation; overgrazing; soil erosion; poaching and habitat destruction threatens wildlife populations; water pollution; inadequate supplies of potable water.

Geography Note

Lake Volta is the world's largest artificial lake; northeasterly harmattan wind (January to March).

Demographics

Population

20,244,154 (2002)
Note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected.

Age structure

0-14 years:	41.18%	male 4,116,600	female 4,063,654
15-64 years:	55.35%	male 5,625,397	female 5,723,786
65 years and over:	3.47%	male 338,352	female 376,365

(2002)

Growth Rate

1.7% (2002)

Life Expectancy

57.06 years (2002)
female: 58.51 years
male: 55.66 years

GDP Per Capita

Purchasing power parity
US$1,980 (2001)

Infant Mortality

55.64 deaths/1,000 live births (2002)

Sex ratio

At birth:	1.03 male(s)/female
Under 15 years:	1.01 male(s)/female
15-64 years:	0.98 male(s)/female
65 years and over:	0.9 male(s)/female
Total population:	0.99 male(s)/female

(2002)

Net migration rate

-0.74 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2002)

Economy & Trade

Well endowed with natural resources, Ghana has roughly twice the per capita output of the poorer countries in West Africa. Even so, Ghana remains heavily dependent on international financial and technical assistance. Gold, timber, and cocoa production are major sources of foreign exchange. The domestic economy continues to revolve around subsistence agriculture, which accounts for 36 percent of GDP and employs 60 percent of the work force, mainly small landholders. Excessively expansionary monetary and fiscal policy prior to the 2000 elections led to accelerating inflation in early 2001. A depressed cocoa market and continued weak growth in non-traditional exports led to disappointing growth in 2001. Ghana opted for debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) program in 2002. It also joined the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) under the International Monetary Fund in 2003. As part of that program, the government put into place a fiscal regimen that would put it on the path to GDP growth rates of over 4.7 percent up through 2006.

Unemployment

20% (1997)

Inflation Rate

25% (2001)

Industries

Mining, lumbering, light manufacturing, aluminum smelting, food processing.

Exports

US$1.94 billion (f.o.b., 2000)

Imports

US$2.83 billion (f.o.b., 2000)

Total Trade

Purchasing power parity
GDP US$39.4 billion (2001)

Top Export Partners

Togo, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, US, France (1998).

Top Import Partners

UK, Nigeria, US, Germany, Italy, Spain (1998).

Top Exports

Gold, cocoa, timber, tuna, bauxite, aluminum, manganese ore, diamonds.

Top Imports

Capital equipment, petroleum, foodstuffs.

Debt - external

US$5.96 billion (2001)

Economic aid

Recipient: US$6.9 billion (1999)

Fiscal Year:

Calendar year.

Business Workweek

	Monday - Friday	Saturday - Sunday
Offices	8a.m. to noon, and 2p.m. to 5p.m.	Saturday, 8:30a.m. to noon
Retail	Monday and Tuesday, and Thursday and Friday, 8a.m. to noon, 2p.m. to 5:30p.m., Wednesday 8a.m. to 1p.m.	Saturday, 8a.m. to 1p.m.
Banks	Monday through Thursday, 8:30a.m. to 2p.m., and Friday 8:30a.m. to 3p.m.	Closed
Government	8a.m. to 12:30p.m., and 1:30p.m. to 5p.m.	Closed

Holidays

Official Holidays

Holidays	2003	2004	2005
New Year's Day	January 1	January 1	January 1
Festival of Sacrifice (Eid Al Adha)¹	February 12	February 2	January 21
Independence Day	March 6	March	March 6
Good Friday	April 18	April 9	March 25
Easter²	April 20	April 11	March 27
Easter Monday	April 21	April 12	March 28
Labor Day	May 1	May 1	May 1
Army Day	June 10	June 10	June 10
Start of Ramadan³	October 27	October 15	October 4
End of Ramadan (Eid Al Fitr)*¹	November 26	November 14	November 3
Christmas Day*²	December 25	December 25	December 25
Boxing Day	December 26	December 26	December 26
Revolution Day	December 31	December 31	December 31

¹	Culmination of the Haj or Holy Pilgrimage.
²	Easter, a Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the first Sunday after the full moon and the vernal equinox (fixed in the Gregorian calendar at March 21), and often observed with Good Friday and Easter Monday. In the West, Easter is predicted using the Gregorian calendar, while Eastern Orthodox Christians use the much older Julian calendar, and celebrate 13 days later.
³	Ramadan (the month of fasting) begins with the first appearance of the new moon in the ninth month of the lunar Islamic Hijra calendar, and lasts 30 days. Dates for the start of Ramadan will vary from country to country, depending on the first appearance of the moon.
*¹	Feasting that officially marks the end of Ramadan, and commonly lasts for three days.
*²	Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. In A.D.320, Pope Julius I fixed the date at December 25 based on the Gregorian calendar. The Orthodox church calculates Christmas using the Julian calendar and celebrates 13 days later on January 7.

Country information used by permission of World Trade Press