Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has stated that Ghana will meet its 2019 growth projections set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
Some analysts have questioned the significance of the 8.8 percent and 7.6 percent growth rate projections made by the IMF and World Bank for Ghana’s Economic growth for 2019, saying that the country still depends more on imports than export.
However, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta says the projections can be achieved based on works being done by government.
“If an analyst tells you the fundamentals are the same, you can ask if that is really true. If you have inflation coming down from 15.4 percent to 9.2 percent, with a positive primary balance for the first time in a decade, growth around 7 percent, then it’s kind of disingenuous,” Mr. Ofori-Atta told Citi Business News in an interview.
He however acknowledged that there are still major challenges that need to be addressed in terms of keeping the discipline of expenditures, raising revenue and making labour more productive.
Mr. Ofori-Atta also decried the over reliance on importation which currently stands at $2.4 billion for food alone.
“Clearly our current account structure is not what we want. We want to either substitute our import so that we don’t import 2.4 billion dollars’ worth of food or we want to export so that we move our exports beyond where we are,” he expressed.
He further stated that although there is still a long way to go in terms of economic growth, the country has come thus far in managing the economy.
Citibusinessnews