Uninterrupted power to play leading role in Ghana's economic fortunes: World Bank

Uninterrupted power will play a major role in determining Ghana's economic fortunes in 2017 and 2018, the World Bank has said on Monday.

Although the bank forecasts that the economy will grow by 4.5 percent in both 2017 and 2018, this will greatly depend on the power supply regime.

This came to light during the global launch by video conference of the African Pulse produced by the bank twice a year.

The growth, according to the forecast, will be propelled by increased investor confidence, oil production from new oilfields and solution to the country's energy crisis.

Punam Chuhan-Pole, Acting Chief Economist for Africa, who co-authored the report, said there was the urgent need to diversify African economies.

"I think it is important to look at some of the policy challenges that the region is facing; there are the short term that the region can sustain itself in terms of the drop in commodity prices, especially oil, but also other commodities at least to be a short practice that is likely to persist for some time," Chunam-Pole stated.

According to her, the time has come for the continent's agriculture sector to be transformed with the availability of appropriate technology and requisite human resource.

She said sub-Saharan economies would also pick up at about 3.3 percent in 2016, reflecting a gradual picking up in the region's largest economies like Angola, Nigeria, and South Africa as commodity prices stabilize and policies become more supportive of the economy.

The Africa Pulse listed Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia as countries whose external debt levels had risen significantly in 2015, after some of them, including Ghana and, Kenya and Zambia had tapped into the international bond market at increasingly expensive yields.

Makita Diop, World Bank Vice-President for Africa, therefore urged countries in Sub-Sahara Africa to boost domestic resource mobilization so as to reduce the effect of imminent volatilities.

Diop stressed that the external environment confronting the region was expected to remain difficult and any delays in implementing adjustments to the drop in revenue from commodity exports and worsening drought conditions posed severe risks to growth prospects. Enditem