Following persistent negotiations with Chinese authorities for debt cancellation, President Akufo-Addo is sure Ghana will achieve a final agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout by the end of this month.

He claims that a meeting with the Chinese Exim Bank is going well and suggests that the nation may close a deal with the Paris club.

At the annual gathering of ambassadors and high commissioners yesterday night at the Peduase lodge, he made this statement in a speech.

“Just as we managed to get the staff level agreement in recorded time in December last year, whose terms we’re systematically fulfilling including the difficult but ultimately highly successful process of the domestic debt exchange programme, I’m confident that with the cooperation that we’re receiving from the Paris Club and the People’s Republic of China which has sent a delegation from China’s EXIM Bank to Accra over the weekend to meet with officials of the Ministry of Finance, we shall be able to go to the board of the Fund to conclude finally the agreement by the end of March. This will set the stage for the strong recovery of Ghana’s economy,” he said.

His assurance follows his appeal to Germany to “encourage” China, an ad hoc member of the Paris Club, to support Ghana’s debt restructuring efforts.

In order to support the initiatives that would enable Ghana to resume economic growth, he said it is imperative that the Paris Club quickly creates a creditors committee with the participation of other official creditors.

When the German Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, visited the President at Jubilee House in Accra, the President made the call.

Source: The Independent Ghana