Ghana’s private sector maintained growth in November, seeing further improvements in new orders, output and employment, while business confidence improved to the highest in just over a year.
That said, inflationary pressures picked up sharply, with higher prices often reflecting increases in fuel costs. Meanwhile, suppliers’ delivery times shortened to the greatest extent on record.
The headline seasonally adjusted Ghana PMI was unchanged at 51.0 in November, signalling a third successive improvement in business conditions in the private sector, and one that was the same modest pace as seen in October.
In line with the headline figure, business activity increased slightly, and at the same pace as seen in the previous month. Where output rose, panellists linked this to higher new orders. On the other hand, price pressures reportedly limited the pace of expansion.
New order growth ticked higher in November and remained solid. Sector data indicated that trends in new business were positive across the five broad areas covered by the survey.
With output requirements increasing, firms once again raised their staffing levels, extending the current sequence of job creation to three months. The latest increase was solid and the sharpest since May.
Rising capacity enabled firms to keep on top of workloads despite sustained new order growth. Backlogs of work decreased for the fourth month running, albeit marginally.
Firms were strongly confident in the 12-month outlook for business activity, with sentiment rising sharply from October to the highest in just over a year. As well as hoping for improvements in customer demand, new company strategies
Companies often passed on rises in input costs to their customers, thereby leading to a sharp increase in output charges. The rate of inflation was the steepest since July
Comment
Commenting on the latest survey results, Andrew Harker, Economics Director at IHS Markit, said: “Ghana’s private sector continues to grow steadily as the year draws to a close, according to the latest PMI data. One highlight from the latest findings was a sharp jump in confidence as firms look forward to further growth over the year ahead. Price pressures continued to build though, in some cases limiting output growth. Higher fuel costs were mentioned in particular as having added to cost burdens responses.
