News:
February 17, 2014
Trade and Industry Minister Haruna Iddrisu says government is considering an embargo on certain imports as part of measures to curb the country\’s swelling trade deficit and ease pressure on the cedi, which has weakened by more than 9 percent against the dollar this year.
“We will ban the importation into the country of a number of products. I just want the institutional framework to be put in place, which is the establishment of the International Trade Commission to propose anti-dumping and countervailing measures,” said Mr. Iddrisu at a meeting with business and trade groups, including members of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) and Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in Accra.
“We trust that we will get your support when we move to that era”, he told the business leaders.
Ghana\’s current-account deficit worsened in 2013, increasing to 12.3 percent of GDP from 12.1 percent in 2012, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) said in its monetary policy statement on Feb 6.
The trade deficit was US$3.4billion from January-October 2013.
Apart from oil and automobiles, Ghana\’s largest imports include rice, frozen fish, chicken products, vegetable oil, and tomato products. Together, these items cost the nation $1billion annually to import, President John Mahama said last week.
The BoG, which stepped in early this month with short-term policies to halt the cedi\’s decline, urged government to act to limit the import of consumption goods that have local substitutes and to diversify the country\’s exports, currently dominated by gold, cocoa and oil.
The slump in gold and cocoa prices lost the country $1.3billion in export revenues last year, according to the central bank.
Mr. Iddrisu said government will secure a credit facility for rice farmers to boost production and curtail imports, which measure around $400million annually.
BFT