The coronavirus pandemic had a strong impact on Ghana's private sector during March, with temporary company shutdowns and a lack of customers combining to lead to the sharpest reductions in both output and new orders since the survey began in January 2014.
Employment also fell at an unprecedented rate and confidence slumped.
Meanwhile, total input costs decreased for the first time in the survey's history, and at a steep pace.
In turn, companies lowered their own selling prices substantially.
The headline seasonally adjusted Ghana PMI® fell more than ten index points in March, down to 41.4 from 52.6 in February.
The reading was the lowest in more than six years of data collection and represented a substantial deterioration in business conditions during the month.
A number of the variables monitored by the survey fell at record rates in March, including output, new orders and employment.
The COVID-19 outbreak and efforts imposed to try to contain it resulted in a steep decline in new orders.
A lack of customers and company shutdowns were meanwhile the main factors leading to a decline in business activity.
In both cases, the reductions in March followed solid increases in February.
Falling new orders led to a retrenchment in staffing levels, the first decline in employment for just over three-and-a-half years.
Despite this reduction in capacity, the severity of the decrease in new business meant that companies were still able to deplete backlogs of work markedly.
Companies scaled back their purchasing activity sharply in March, with some firms indicating issues with the supply of materials from other countries such as China.
The reduction in input buying was the sharpest since July 2014.
Inventories were also down substantially.
Despite a lack of demand for inputs, supply shortages contributed to a marked lengthening of suppliers' delivery times.
Overall input costs fell for the first time in the survey's history during March, with both purchase prices and staff costs decreasing.
Lower fuel costs were widely mentioned by those panellists seeing a drop in purchase prices, while employee layoffs contributed to a marked reduction in staff costs.
In response to the sharp decrease in input costs, companies in Ghana also lowered their own selling prices at a substantial pace.
The pace of decline was the fastest in the series history, far surpassing the previous record from August 2016.
Business sentiment was also impacted by COVID-19, with company shutdowns and other measures to attempt to contain the virus leading to pessimism at a number of firms.
Confidence fell considerably to a new record low.
That said, a number of respondents were hopeful that the economy would recover from the epidemic quickly enough to help output increase by this time next year. ■