Fiscal Deficit Reached 15% of GDP in 2008

Ghana’s fiscal deficit reached 2.5 billion cedis ($1.8 billion) last year, or about 15 percent of gross domestic product, President John Atta Mills said in his first State of the Nation address.

“We are experiencing volatility in commodity prices, a reduction in foreign aid and remittance flows from our citizens living abroad, many of whom have lost their jobs,” he said today in parliament in the capital, Accra.

Ghana, the world’s second-largest cocoa producer after the Ivory Coast, relies mainly on commodity exports for its foreign income. The country has tried to add value in recent years by increasing the amount of cocoa processed domestically.

Atta Mills was sworn in as president last month after his National Democratic Congress party won power in December elections