Felix Tetteh-Fio, an economic consultant, says that government’s contracting of a $300 million loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently is laudable but the conditions attached to it remain a big challenge. Making this known at a day’s review of Ghana’s half-year economic performance in Accra, Mr. Tettey-Fio further noted that the freeze of public sector wages as well as the removal of subsidies on utilities were immediate concerns which the government had to address using its own ingenuity in order not to cause social unrests. He revealed that there was already a tightening of credit to both households and enterprises during the second-quarter of this year, while there had been declines in net demand for households and firms as a result of the economic recession. “Developments on the credit market indicate a shortening of maturity loans and credit lines, while requirement of additional loan covenants and collaterals have been used to tighten credit stance,” he reiterated, stressing that there had further been a deterioration in the quality of loan books of banks with non-performing loan ratio increasing from 8.8 percent at May 2008 to 11 percent at May 2009, and falling again to 9.8 percent at end June 2009. “The capital market appears to have suffered the greatest from the economic crisis as the market suffered a loss of about 50 percent in cedi terms over a 6-month period ending in June 2009, with offshore investors moving out of the market,” Mr. Tettey-Fio emphasized. He mentioned that the country was experiencing a slowdown in economic activity, coupled with a reduction in tourist arrivals, domestic VAT and industrial consumption of electricity, adding “evidence from the Bank of Ghana shows a 28 percent reduction in cement sales.” On the 2009 Budget, the economic consultant, called on government to check the high inflation and exchange rate expectations. According to him, the reduction in budgetary outlays might stifle investment and affect growth prospects, particularly the delays in the disbursement of budgetary support programmes. Meanwhile, the country’s trade deficit fell to $868 million compared to $2.15 billion over the same period last year. T otal merchandise imports also fell to $3.8 billion in the half year, compared with $5.0 billion over the same period last year, while the country’s oil import bill drastically reduced to $449 million compared to $1.3 billion over the same period last year. Imports of capital goods also fell by 11 percent to $738 million, while imports of intermediate goods also fell by 3.6 percent to $1.6 billion, with consumption goods dropping by 5.5 percent to $738 million. Total half-year exports equalled $3 billion as against $2.85 billion last year, while cocoa exports grew to $1.06 billion from $0.91 billion last year. Provisional data indicate that non-traditional exports also fell to $542 million against $661 million for June 2008. Gold exports however rose to $1.21 billion for the half-year from $1.19 last year. Story by Samuel Boadi/Daily Guide/Ghana