The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) resident representative in Ghana, Dr. Leandro Medina, has lauded the country’s economic outlook.
Dr. Leandro revealed that although Ghana is not out of the woods yet, critical reforms have been made.
“Despite a very difficult external environment, macro has been quite resilient, Dr. Leandro said in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM.
“The critical reforms have been made, critical actions by authorities have been taken, and we are on the right path. Are we there? Not yet. There are key objectives of this programme, that is to restore macroeconomic stability, secure sustainability, and lay the foundations for more durable and higher and more inclusive growth, we are not there yet but we are on the right path,” he stated.
He continued, “When you look at growth, we had to upgrade our projections because growth in 2023 has been more resilient, inflation has been on a decreasing path, reserves have been increasing, and exchange volatility has also decreased.”
The Fund considered Ghana’s economy to be attaining stability with macroeconomic indicators.
“It is extremely important to know where we are and where we intend to be. By no means are we there, [but] when we see early signs of stability emerging,” he said, citing, for example, “inflation is down from 54 to 23, 23 is still high for inflation and way above the BoG target, but we are getting there, we are on the right track.”
Dr. Leandro stressed the significant drop in the inflation figures as one of the key indicators that actions taken by the government are yielding some positive results.
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The economy has significantly improved, as evidenced by the fact that inflation dropped from a record high of 54% in December 2022 to 23.2 percent in December 2023.
In navigating economic issues and putting sound fiscal policies into place, Dr. Medina stated that “collaboration between Ghanaian authorities and foreign financial institutions is producing great results.”
Following the onslaught of COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, world economies ground to a halt.
Nonetheless, Ghana’s economy appears to be on the right path towards full recovery.
Meanwhile, the IMF has projected 3.1% in 2024 and 3.2% in 2025 as global economic growth rates. This was revealed in the Fund’s January 2024 World Economic Outlook Update.