Ghana and 7 other African economies would be greatly affected by the Coronavirus outbreak according to Fitch

Fitch said the Sub-Saharan countries are Ghana, Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Zambia, South Africa, Gabon, and Nigeria.

It stated that the outbreak will have a downside risk for sub-Saharan African growth, particularly in the aforementioned countries.

“We at Fitch Solutions see downside risks to the short-term growth outlook in a number of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) markets due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus (Covid-19) in China.”

Almost 45,000 people have been infected with the virus as of February 12, 2020. Meanwhile, the virus, which was first reported in Wuhan in December 2019, has killed over 1,100 people.

“The spread of the virus has disrupted economic activity in China, with, at least, 88 cities—including economically important cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou—put on complete or partial lockdown in a bid to contain Covid-19. As a result, we have revised down our forecast of Chinese real GDP growth in 2020 to 5.6%, from 5.9% previously, with this projection subject to downside risks”.

Fitch said this will affect sub-Saharan African countries that China imports commodities heavily from.

Ghana exported about 12% of its commodities to the Chinese market in 2018. This made the West African country the fifth country in sub-Saharan Africa to do so. Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Zambia are the first four.