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Ghana says on track to exit IMF bailout

Ghana is on track to exit its almost $1.0bn bailout programme with the International Monetary Fund by the end of the year, finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta said on Thursday.

"We are now on course to exit the IMF programme by the end of this year," he said in a speech to parliament presenting the 2019 budget proposal.

"We are grateful to the IMF and are determined to maintain a combination of economic discipline and vibrancy that will ensure that we will not have to be rescued in that manner in the future."

The minister said Ghana was also on course to achieving its fiscal deficit target of 3.7% of GDP for the year, as it works to convince investors it is committed to sound economic policies.

Gross domestic product is on track to expand 5.6% in 2018 and 7.6% in 2019, he added.

President Nana Akufo-Addo's New Patriotic Party came to power calling for economic reform after his predecessor John Dramani Mahama was forced to go to the IMF for a bailout three years ago.

The new government has worked to chip away at Ghana's debt and curtail the deficit.

"The deficit projection for 2019 - at 4.2% of GDP - is helped by the recent GDP rebasing," said Razia Khan, Africa economist at Standard Chartered.

"What matters far more for the purposes of debt sustainability will be whether primary fiscal surpluses can be comfortably achieved."

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