Ghana, Germany hold bilateral talks over debt restructuring
Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance, has held bilateral meetings with a German delegation, led by Ms Svenja Schulze, the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The meeting, which was to deepen Ghana-German relations, was used to discuss the role of the KfW Development Bank in supporting Ghana in its post debt restructuring to ensure economic stability and sustainable growth.
The two countries also discussed structural changes in the energy sector and ways to make it more sustainable to support the economy as well as improve regional security to augment cross-border trade.
Mr Ofori-Atta informed the visiting Minister that Ghana had successfully reached the Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The SLA is on economic policies and reforms to be supported by a new three-year arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) of about $3 billion in December 2022.
He indicated that the parties had agreed on structural reform benchmarks, prior actions, performance criteria on key macro-fiscal indicators, and the finalisation of the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP).
He said that the success of the country’s debt restructuring programme, which would require external support from countries like Germany, was critical for Ghana’s programme to be considered at the IMF Executive Board.
Mr Ofori-Atta also stated that all prior actions have been satisfied, and the government was hopeful that it would get an IMF Board approval in March or early April.
The KfW team said they were ready to partner with the Development Bank Ghana, to be an advocate for setting up a creditors committee and the Ghana Stabilisation Fund.
The German Minister assured the Minister for Finance that Germany was ready to engage other Development partners yet to sign on to the creditors committee during the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting scheduled to take place end February.
Ambassador Daniel Krull, German Ambassador to Ghana joined the Minister for the meeting.
Source: GNA