{"id":130747,"date":"2015-07-02T12:50:37","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T12:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=130747"},"modified":"2015-07-02T13:00:10","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T13:00:10","slug":"terkper-jabs-local-business-for-contributing-close-to-nothing-in-exports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=130747","title":{"rendered":"Terkper jabs local business for contributing nothing to exports"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Finance Minister, Seth Terkper has hit hard at local businesses who he said have not made any serious effort to contribute to the growth of the country\u2019s export figures.<\/p>\n

The high figures in imports have been highly blamed for the country\u2019s struggling currency the cedi.<\/p>\n

The cedi has depreciated in excess of 25 percent against major foreign currencies like the dollar, British pound and Euro between January and June this year.<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”F1XNdyyLYIfMAjCr3VEoGyr02Je2Xr4w”]There have been calls for the dismissal of the Finance Minister and the governor of the Bank of Ghana over the currency\u2019s poor performance but speaking at the Graphic Business-Fidelity Bank roundtable discussion, Seth Terkper called on the private sector to do more to boost the country\u2019s exports to help shore up the value of the cedi.<\/p>\n

According to Seth Terkper “the country cannot continue to rely on cocoa farmers and miners” to increase the country\u2019s exports.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy must we all continue to complain about imports and the cedi depreciation. Where is the export earned activities, permit me to ask the AGI, GUTA, GNCCI, how come we must all depend on cocoa farmers and miners for forex, can we not export pepper, yam whatever it is to boost our forex why must we all depend on the bank of Ghana,\u201d he queried.<\/p>\n

The Finance Minister added the poor performance of the cedi must not be taken out of contest since its performance reflects current domestic and external factors.<\/p>\n

“To depreciation of currencies we have Brazil, Turkey, Nigeria, Mexico, South Africa\u00a0 and this reflects the global context the global financial crisis is still ongoing so Ghana is also in this market so some of the effects like the beginning of the growth of the US economy on account of shale gas and others has strengthened the dollar so it\u2019s not just domestic factors but other external factors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He announced a number of measures government is putting in place to solve the issue of the cedi\u2019s depreciation.<\/p>\n

He indicated that what must be done is for \u201cthe Bank of Ghana to strengthen its swap arrangements and more liberalized use of forex like we are doing in the petroleum sector and other sectors so the reserves are not held captive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also need to tighten customs operations tariff classification and valuation,\u00a0 seasonality is something we need to work on there are peaks towards the end of the year, cocoa revenues come in the bond and then donors come in so by the end of the year we see better forex income, but it\u2019s in the beginning that we don\u2019t see much, but just like power when it comes to forex we need a medium term solution,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

By:\u00a0 Vivian Kai Lokko\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finance Minister, Seth Terkper has hit hard at local businesses who he said have not made any serious effort to contribute to the growth of the country\u2019s export figures. The high figures in imports have been highly blamed for the country\u2019s struggling currency the cedi. The cedi has depreciated in excess of 25 percent against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":65382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43,21,4],"class_list":["post-130747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-psychiatric","tag-st-augustines-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}