By the end of this year, Ghana will issue its first ever century bonds worth between $5 billion and $10 billion, Ken Ofori-Atta (photo), the finance minister indicated in an interview with Bloomberg.

According to the official’s statements, this issuance should help the country pay its current debt, overcome the $7 billion deficit in the infrastructure sector and build many factories.  

This bond issuance is part of the $50 billion century bond announced earlier this month and will be issued in installments.

Let’s remind that this year, Ghana decided not to issue Panda bonds and some months before the above mentioned century bond, it issued about $2 billion Euro bonds on the debt market.

In addition, the country’s currency is going through tough times and its dollar-denominated bonds’ sales are dropping (due notably to an increase of interest rates in the USA that has reduced investors’ passion for high yield assets) on emerging markets.

Though authorities show confidence in the state of the country’s public finance, many experts point out the over-indebtedness planning over Ghana’s economy.

Let’s note that according to the central bank’s figures, public debt amounts to more than 65% of GDP. IMF expects the country’s economy to grow to 6.3% in 2018 and 7.6% in 2019.

Moutiou Adjibi Nourou