Deputy Finance Minister, Dr Stephen Amoah, has urged stakeholders in the tourism sector to focus on domestic tourism primarily, as a strategy to stabilize the depreciating cedi.
The cedi depreciation which has become a concern to many, especially business owners is now trading between GH₵14.50 to GH₵15 to the dollar.
Speaking at the GIPC Quarter Two CEOs Breakfast Meeting in Accra on Thursday, May 16, 2024, Dr Amoah emphasized the importance of the tourism industry and its role in boosting inflows.
Hence, he encouraged stakeholders to bolster local economic growth by adopting homegrown policies.
“One thing I have seen about Africa is that we have a lot of ideas but sometimes the global models control us too much. We need to build homegrown policy tools that specifically address our needs. So we need to do all these things and make sure that we all repent…let’s begin to show that high level of patronage and keep the money here”.
“We always talk about cedi, cedi, if we change dollars and go there why won’t the cedi suffer? But if you stay here the dollar people come, they will demand our currency. As a country, we have everything we can to develop tourism because God has given us. God has endowed us,” he stated.
Meanwhile, a renowned economist at the University of Ghana Business School, Prof Lord Mensah has attributed the current depreciation of the cedi to market sentiment.
According to him, many individuals have stacked up dollars, anticipating a rise in its cost in the coming days, and are therefore unwilling to trade.
“If you take what is happening now, I will attribute it to more of a market sentiment other than the structural issues”.
“The reaction of the next level of the dollar at any point. If you are holding the dollar as to whether to sell it or to hold it depends on your anticipation of the dollar price in the next few moments or the next day, that is what is happening now,” he noted in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report on Joy News.
He added; “So we have gone past the structural issues which used to be the balance of payment crisis that we had. Where our balance of payment depleted so as a result of that, the dollar buffer went down but what we see now is a self-fulfilling crisis”.