BUDGET: Trade deficit for 2001 - $848 million

The balance of trade recorded a deficit of US$848.3 million (16.1 per cent of GDP) against the projected deficit of US$778.8 million (14.5 per cent of GDP).

The larger deficit was on account of larger than projected imports of oil, due to an unusually high demand for diesel fuel especially in the last quarter of the year, a large portion of which went to the mining sector, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance said on Thursday.

He said in the 2002 budget statement that export trade continued to be dominated by the traditional export commodities of cocoa and gold, which, together accounted for 54.5 per cent of total exports.

Exports performed below expectations, largely by under-performance of both cocoa and gold. The shortfall of US$21.0 million in gold was attributable to labour unrest in one of the major mines as well as the closure of some mines; while the shortfall of US$46.9 million in cocoa was mainly on account of lower than projected crop yield.

He said despite the 1.9 per cent increase in the volume of timber exports over the 2000 level, the export value at US$169.2 million, was lower than the value of US$175.2 million recorded in 2000.

The lower value for timber exports was due to a drop of 0.6 per cent in unit price per cubic metre from US$353.3 in 2000 to US$351.3 in 2001. Non-traditional exports were valued at US$300.6 million, compared to US$226.3 million in 2000 and US$249.3 million in 1999. Mr Osafo-Maafo said total value of imports (fob) was estimated at US$2,691.1 million for 2001 compared to US$2,766.6 million in 2000.

The Minister said the current account balance at the end of the year was a deficit of US$161.5 million against a projected deficit of US$236.4 million. "The better performance was the result of a better than projected net invisibles of US$686.8 million compared to the targeted US$542.4 million," he said.