Ghana

In partnership with Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa & Ankomah, OBG introduces the reader to different aspects of the Ghanaian legal system. This chapter includes a viewpoint on oil-backed borrowing by Kojo Bentsi-Enchill, Senior Partner and Head of Energy & Natural Resources at Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa & Ankomah.

Fuelled by public infrastructure maintenance and expansion, private real estate development and individual residential construction, Ghana’s construction industry has been growing steadily, with sector output increasing by 91.8% between 2006 and 2010. With demand for individual family houses – particularly in the low-income bracket – on the rise and plans in place to develop a number of new...

As the country’s largest employer, the agriculture sector accounts for 28.3% of GDP and produces cereals, grains, fruits, vegetables, shea nuts, starchy staple crops and cotton, among other plants. Cultivated in six of the country’s 10 regions, cocoa is Ghana’s top agricultural export, rising to a value of $1.42bn in 2009. Indeed, having produced a record 1m tonnes in 2011, Ghana is the world’s...

Mining and quarrying, excluding oil and gas, accounted for 2.7% of Ghana’s real GDP in 2011, having grown 19% that year. The country has been producing higher levels of many minerals, including bauxite, silica, coltan, gold and manganese. Gold in particular has been a major boon to the sector given the investor flight to gold that occurred in the wake of the global financial crisis. Indeed, gold...

While the insurance penetration rate in Ghana stands at just 2-3%, authorities are currently in the process of putting into place the institutions necessary to increase awareness of insurance policies and capitalise the market. The sector is made up of 41 insurers, 23 non-life and 18 life. The non-life segment is driven primarily by motor insurance, which is the main source of profit for the...

Ghana has a relatively active banking sector, with 27 universal banks, 135 rural banks and 49 non-bank financial institutions, including leasing firms, mortgage providers, and savings and loan institutions. The contribution of the banking and insurance sectors to GDP has risen steadily in recent years, from 2.7% of GDP in 2006 to 5.2% in 2010. Deposits have also been on the rise, increasing from...