Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) Dr Johnson Asiama, has said that the vulnerabilities in Ghana’s economy should be addressed immediately, else if the Dollar strengthens, it will have a significant impact on Ghana’s economy.
Asked about some of the worries he has about the economy, although everything seems to be going well, he said he doesn’t have any worries at all except that the vulnerabilities must be addressed immediately.
Answering questions during the 127th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) press conference in Accra, Dr Asiama said “Well, I don’t have any worries. But the fact remains that we are basically another commodity-exporting country. What do we export? Three items: oil, cocoa, and gold, and most of them we export as primary products. When you are a country like that, you are always exposed to external shocks.
“If the U.S. dollar strengthens for any reason, that will have a very significant impact on us. And so, my worry is that we tackle some of these vulnerabilities.”
He further stated that the Bank of Ghana is doing its part by building adequate reserves.
“That’s one of the things we can do. But I want to see more of structural programmes. I see some of that in the [2026] budget, which is very good. Can we do more and more processing, more value addition to the items that we export? Talking about oil, can we process some more of that ourselves? Talking about gold, can we process some more of that? Some gold refineries have been set up. Can we get them to be very active? And then, cocoa, can we not set up cocoa factories in Switzerland to produce the chocolates there? So, there are various ideas to process more, and for me, that is one thing I would want to see.”
He also stressed value addition as a way of strengthening the local economy.
“If we can add more value, that will address our vulnerabilities and help to preserve the stability we’ve been able to achieve in this first year. So, that is always at the back of my mind. We work closely with the finance minister, and we discuss these things at length. I want to believe that these are going to be pursued aggressively, and things should be alright,” he said.
