FULL TEXT: BoG Governor's remarks at concluding meeting of IMF first review

Let me first begin by thanking the entire IMF team for the constructive engagement during the past two weeks on all issues bordering on fiscal policy, monetary policy and structural reforms.

Indeed, it has been a very comprehensive and collaborative work between the Government’s side and the IMF, and this has made the two-weeks mission very successful and fruitful.

We have all established that the very decisive measures put in place by the Government and the Bank of Ghana have started yielding results, signaling a faster than expected turnaround which needs to be sustained as we reset the economy.

More specifically:

• Non-Food inflation has dropped significantly by 19 percentage points.

• Food inflation has also by some 8 percent.

• Core inflation, which measures underlying inflation, is also decelerating at a fast pace.

• From the beginning of the year to date, the Bank of Ghana has built reserves of about US$650 million instead of a programmed draw-down of US$98 million. And this has been boosted by the innovative Gold for Reserves program.

• And, as a result, we have seen relative stability in the exchange rate, depreciating by only 2.5 percent between February till date.

It is therefore very important to sustain this strong performance and consolidate the gains we are seeing. Looking ahead, the Bank of Ghana will continue to maintain a tight monetary policy stance until it is confident that inflation is firmly anchored and aligned with the disinflation path agreed in the program.

There would be challenges and difficulties as we work towards sustaining these gains but we remained focused and committed to the reforms and prudent policies to ensure the full benefits of this program are achieved.