Finance Minister, Mr. Seth Terkper has stated that Ghana is carefully observing emerging markets away from Europe and the United States for its upcoming bond as Britain exits the European Union (EU).
According to him, with Ghana’s experience in the core matured markets, the exit of Britain from the EU will have an effect on the European and American bonds markets; hence it will be prudent to study other markets to maximize Ghana’s output.
“We are also watching the emerging markets. When we talk about emerging markets we are talking about the bonds markets involving bonds issued in Brazil, China, India and others. Those are the emerging markets,” he said.
[contextly_sidebar id=”7C5TcoEzrgiea2TidgSDdXTDCzaEDpya”]Speaking to Bernard Avle on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Terkper explained that Brexit will have an insignificant impact on the emerging markets.
“Ghana is on the peripheral of the emerging markets and so to come from the core markets which is the matured European and American markets to the emerging markets the impact of Brexit will be felt and is normally less significant in the peripheral markets,” he said.
The Minister was of the view that, the exit of Britain is more important on how it will impact Ghana’s currency.
He stated that discussions are underway with the Bank of Ghana to assess the impact on Ghana’s major trading currencies such as the pound, euro and dollar.
“We have begun consultation with the Bank of Ghana long before the votes, to monitor the impact on commodity prices,” he added.
Pointing out some areas being monitored, Mr. Terkper stated that the ministry is carefully monitoring the price of gold on the world market to assess the effect in the short and medium term.
According to him, the exit has already shown some impact on the African continent, with the South African rand making some gains on Friday, June 24, 2016.
Brexit will affect Ghana’s trade with UK, EU – Hanna Tetteh
Also speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hanna Tetteh explained that the move will affect Ghana’s trade relations with the UK.
“With regard to the UK and the European Union, what that will impact is our trade relations even that I don’t see that having an impact immediately because, they will now begin the process of negotiating their exit from the European Union….What we have to do now is to watch how the rest of the European Union reacts to this. Because we don’t know whether or not this is going to trigger similar calls for other EU countries which would have even more significant implications than just the Brexit vote.”
She also said Ghana would have to pay attention to the UK and EU negotiations “so that we will know what kind of processes they will continue to have and how that should influence whatever subsequent negotiations we will have with them. Until Britain formally exits EU, the trade arrangement will continue to apply but we have to consider the negotiation of bilateral trade arrangement with the UK.”
Meanwhile, experts have predicted that the UK and EU negotiations will last for about two years.
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By: Lawrence Segbefia & Godwin A. Allotey/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana