Some economists are predicting that Ghana’s economy will be 5 percent by the end of this year.
This is lower compared to government’s 6.3 percent and the World Bank’s 7 percent projections.
Although Ghana ended 2016 with a growth of 3.5 percent which was also lower than the previous year’s 3.9 percent, government’s economic team maintains that policies to boost industrial growth and the coming on board of new oil fields such as TEN and Sankofa, should propel growth and help meet the target.
But Dr. Lord Mensah tells Citi Business News current developments make the projections over-ambitious.
“I’d rather project an end of year growth of 5%. The 7% is quite overambitious; the reason is that the speed at which we grow the economy is not the same as the speed at which economic fundamentals dip,” Dr. Mensah said.
“It is relatively easier for an economy’s growth to fall off target by some distractions. But then if you want to grow an economy, then it borders largely on strategic allocations of the resources available to you and that is quite difficult. So if you are projecting, you don’t need to be that overambitious,” the Economist added.
The Country Director of the World Bank, Henry Kerali in a recent interview told Citi Business News that developments on the global commodity markets predict a bright outlook for Ghana’s economic growth.
He also opined that the interventions outlined by the NPP government plus expected oil output should culminate in economic growth target of 7 percent.
Meanwhile the Member of Parliament for New Juaben South, Dr. Mark Assibey Yeboah tells Citi Business News any possible distortions to the target should be triggered by fiscal imbalances.
“Because new oil fields are coming on board, you know the TEN oilfields production started last quarter and we expect Sankofa, Gye Nyame too to come on board so the growth targets of 6.3%.”
“Where I have some concerns might be with the deficit targets. The revenue for the first quarter of this year has not been that good so we want to see more efforts on the revenue side and if that one comes in then we are good,”Dr. Assibey Yeboah stated.
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