Minister of Finance Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has indicated that the ongoing Middle East tensions are unlikely to pose a significant threat to Ghana’s economy, with any impact expected to be limited largely to inflationary pressure.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg, the Finance Minister acknowledged that he foresees some upward movement in inflation as a result of the tensions but expressed confidence that the figure will not exceed 5% by the end of the year.
“Where I think we may see a bit of pressure will be on the back of inflation. Yes, it will rise and we expect that inflation may inch up. Today it’s about 3.4. I still think we’ll be better off and I don’t think the country’s inflation will exceed 5% by the end of the year.” He stated
Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson attributed Ghana’s resilience to the strong foreign exchange reserves the country has built up, and the fact that petroleum products are no longer subsidised hence reflecting market realities rather than government support.
“We don’t have subsidies at all on petroleum product and so there’s not much of an impact on the national budget. But the good news is that we had built some significant reserves and so the reserves position is the country is able to support the purchases of this product through United State dollar by making the central market making available United State dollars and our gold production is also going up and gold prices is also very high and so we have seen trade balance inching up to about double-digit ten percent plus this year and so Ghana is in a comfortable position to be able to respond to those shocks.” He added
The Minister further revealed that Ghana has never been better prepared for an economic shock than now adding that the nation is in a very strong position to deal with economic shocks like this.
“And let me say that we’ve never been ready to withstand any form of shock than today. Today, the country is in a very healthy position to be able to withstand external shocks of this nature.” He further stated
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