Ghana’s economy is expected to continue to be relatively stable during the 2007 fiscal year, as prices of petroleum products are expected to be adjusted to reflect changes on the world market.

However, inflation is expected to rise slightly to reflect increases in the prices of petroleum products and the general increase in the prices of goods and services, Mr Joseph Nketsiah, General Manager of the Home Finance Company’s (HFC) Investment Services Limited has said.

He was delivering reports on last year’s performance of the HFC’s Equity and Unit Funds at the company’s 14th Annual General Meeting.

Mr Nketsiah cited the energy crisis as the main challenge that may distort the operational budgets of all businesses and industry if stringent measures were not taken to resolve it.

“This will compound the problems as expensive alternative sources of energy are resorted to,” he added.

Mr Nketsiah also noted that increases in fuel prices and the knock-on effect on general prices levels continued to threaten attainment of single-digit inflation.

However, interest rates were expected to continue sliding downwards, with the equity market on the other hand continuing its upward movement throughout the year, he said.

Giving an overview of the company’s Equity Fund performance in 2006, he said after the HFC recovered from the 2005 bearish market conditions, the fund chalked appreciable gains as the Trust out-performed the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) All Share Index.

He said the Trust’s end of year yield which stood at 12.46 per cent was much better than the 4.97 per cent posted by the stock market for the same period.

Source: GNA