Ghana Economic Snapshot

Economic Highlights:

- Strong signals of disinflation

- Improvement in Government finances

- Strong revenue generation, expenditure within budgeted levels

- Sharp reduction in fiscal deficit

- Large decline in domestic public debt/gdp ratio.

Interest rates

Benchmark T-bill dropped from 34.0% in June to 18.5% as at date.

Inflation

CPI slowed for the sixth consecutive month, headline inflation down from 30.0% in April to 24.6% in October.

Currency

Cedi to Us dollar depreciation year to date at 4.5%.

Cedi to Euro depreciation at 20.8% year to date.

External Balances and payments

External payments improved significantly with very favorable cocoa and gold prices and a larger than projected cocoa harvest. Export proceeds from cocoa (year to date) up to $660.0 million, approximately 40 percent more than the amount recorded for the whole of 2002.

Gold exports up by 17 percent in value and 6.8 percent in volume terms.

Inward remittances (inclusive of transfer received from NGOs individuals etc) through the banking sector amounted to US$1,558 million for January – September 2003.

Gross reserves up to an unprecedented level of US$1.25 billion (3.7 months import cover)