(Corrects IMF loan approval to May, not June, in headline and
first paragraph)
ACCRA, April 13 (Reuters) - Ghana expects the
International Monetary Fund's board to approve a $3 billion loan
in May, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said in a presentation
on Thursday.
The embattled West African country secured a staff-level
agreement with the IMF for the $3 billion support package in
December. But the Fund requires bilateral lenders to provide
assurances they will restructure its debt as a condition of
signing off on the loan.
Ofori-Atta said that official creditor financial assurances
are expected by May and that the country's domestic debt
exchange programme would yield 38 billion cedis of debt service
savings in 2023.
He added that $20 billion of external debt was eligible for
restructuring, 66% of the external debt stock. Of that, $5.4
billion in official creditor debt will be restructured.
A memorandum of understanding with official creditors and an
agreement in principle on Eurobond restructuring are expected by
July, with a 2030 Eurobond partially guaranteed by the World
Bank included in the restructuring, the minister said.
He added that Ghana needs a $1.5 billion financial stability
fund to ensure appropriate solvency and liquidity.
"The World Bank has fortunately agreed to support this fund
with a quarter of a billion... and government, looking at the
space we have, also committing about $500 million to that,"
Ofori-Atta said at the virtual briefing.
Ghana's net foreign exchange reserves fell sharply in 2022
and are currently $2.6 billion, central bank governor Ernest
Addison said in the briefing.
The government also aims to bring rampant inflation down to
8% in the medium term and is targeting real GDP growth of 5%
over the same period, a presentation accompanying the briefing
said.
Ghana's inflation reached a more than two-decade high of
54.1% in December, but has since slowed, falling to 45%
year-on-year in March.
(Reporting by Anait Miridzhanian, Rachel Savage and Libby
George;
Writing by Sofia Christensen
Editing by Estelle Shirbon)
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