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The Finance Minister, Mr. Ken Ofori Atta says his government will end the year with a much improving deficit.

“I’m glad to report that we are well on course to end the year on a fiscal deficit of 6.3 percent from 9.4%”. The soft spoken minister said. 

Presenting the 2018 Budget and Economic Policy Statement to Parliament on Wednesday, 15 November, Mr Ofori-Atta outlined government’s macroeconomic targets set for 2018 fiscal year

• Overall GDP growth rate of 6.8 percent;
• Non-oil GDP growth rate of 5.4 percent;
• End period inflation rate of 8.9 percent;
• Average inflation rate of 9.8 percent;
• Fiscal deficit of 4.5% percent GDP;
• Primary balance (surplus) of 1.6 percent of GDP;
• Gross Foreign Assets to cover at least 3.5 months of imports of goods and services

The Minister said he can ‘beat his chest’ to say that “government has been able to achieve in one year what the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) government could not achieve in eight years.”