A vessel ready to offload its cargoes
THE TOTAL value of Ghana’s top ten non-oil merchandise imports for the second quarter of this year amounted to $848.01 million compared to $868.25 million recorded in the second quarter of 2020.
Data from the Central Bank, which disclosed this, named the key items imported as vehicles for both private and commercial use, self-propelled bulldozers, rice, sugar and polyethylene, among others.
Also, the total non-oil merchandised imports (including electricity imports) for quarter two 2021 was provisionally estimated at $2.751 billion, down by 7.8% from the value of $2.981 billion recorded in the second quarter of 2020.
The drop in non-oil imports was due to decreases in the imports of consumption and intermediate goods. The value of capital goods imported during the period was $633.82 million, up by 2.5% from $618.57 million recorded for the same period in 2020. This was as a result of an 11.1% increase in industrial transport goods.
The import of consumption goods decreased by 16.1% to $518.87 million, from $618.06 million imported during the same period in 2020.
This was caused by decreases in all sub-categories except non-industrial transport and semi-durable consumer goods.
Again, the value of intermediate goods imported also decreased by 12.5% to $1.253 billion, largely on account of a fall in the demand for goods in all sub-categories, except primary industrial supplies, which recorded an increase of 36.9 percent.
On the other hand, the bank reported that the total value of some top ten non-traditional commodities exported during the second quarter rose to $316.53 million, compared to $273.44 million recorded for the same period last year.
The top ten non-traditional items exported in the review period were cashew nuts, preserved tuna, palm oil and bye products and aluminium, among others.
It said cashew nuts accounted for $116.17 million, representing 36.70% of the total exported non-traditional export products.
Palm oil and its fractions as well as prepared or preserved tuna recorded $46.18 million and $25.65 million respectively.
This represented 14.59% and 8.10% respectively of the non-traditional exports market.