business report

The Country ‘s and Region ‘s Financial Health

Economic Indicators

Economic indicators show that as a developing country , Ghana has a favorable economic and financial performance especially compared to the other countries in the region . The GDP of the country was estimated to be 59 .15 billion for 2006 which amounts to 2600 GDP per capita . These figures showed that there was a healthy growth of 5 .7 in that year (CIA , 2007

Other important factors that must be considered before making an investment decision in the country are high exchange , interest [banner_entry_middle]

and inflation rates which have been adversely affected by the increasing prices of petrol

Import and Exports

The country earns foreign exchange mainly from export of gold and cocoa (CIA , 2007 ) and the increasing prices have lead to a lot of growth in the country (EDC , 2006 . Its major imports include capital goods and petroleum (CIA , 2007 . This has an obvious effect on the cost of production within the country . However , the government supports industrial growth through oil subsidies and other such measures . Such measures put a lot of pressure of Ghana ‘s budget deficit . Therefore in accordance with its fiscal policy of reducing budgetary deficit and domestic debt , there has been a recent reduction in oil subsidies (EDC 2006

Stock Market

Ghana has one stock exchange called the Ghana Stock Exchange which has 22 listed companies by the end of the 1990 ‘s which are of mainly of gold , cocoa , banking and brewing industry . However , market movements are mainly determined by the Ashanti Goldfield stocks

Local Exchange Rates and Trends

The currency of Ghana is called Ceti (GTC . Till the early 1980 ‘s the exchange rate of the currency was artificially maintained . But once this policy was abolished and the currency was devalued and floated its value began to decrease significantly . In 1995 , a policy to use exchange rates to control inflation was adopted which lead to considerable intervention in the exchange rate market . The exchange rates continued to move upwards until the end of the 90 ‘s . However , since the tightening of the monetary and fiscal policies , lower debt service payments and lower inflation rates the exchange rates have become quite stable in the past five years (EIU , 2006

Figure SEQ Figure \ ARABIC 1 : Cetis per US dollar (Source CIA Fact book 2007

Currency Control or Repatriation Issues to Be Addressed

With the proactive efforts to bring down inflation rate to a single digit figure by the end of 2007 (Coutsoukis , 2004 , policy makers have again adopted the strategy of using exchange rates to control inflation by using donor aid and remittances to buy Cetis to control money supply Thus , even though , the exchange rates are stabilizing in nominal terms the real exchange rate increased by 11 .5 in 2005 . Therefore , one has to consider whether the policy will be able to sustain the stability in the exchange rates in the future (EIU , 2006

Market Analysis

With the increasing global energy demands there has been… [banner_entry_footer]