More than 540 million dollars in remittances was channelled through the banks and finance companies from Non-Governmental Organisations, Churches and Individuals in the first quarter of this year. This represents some 70 per cent increase over the amount recorded in the same period last year, giving boost to the volume of foreign exchange inflows into the country.
Dr Paul Acquah, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana announced this at a press conference to review the macro-economic performance for the first quarter of 2003 and an outlook for inflation in the year.
The Governor said foreign exchange deposits in the banking system also showed an improvement rising to 436 million dollars as at the end of March from 418 million dollars in December last year. He said during the period under review foreign exchange purchases amounted to 434 million dollars while sales stood at 415 million dollars.
On government revenue, Dr Acquah said total revenue for the period stood at 2,698 billion cedis, exceeding the budget target by over 90 billion cedis. He said total expenditure on the other hand had been contained below the budget target, leaving a domestic surplus of 190.8 billion cedis compared to a budgeted deficit target of 421 billion for the quarter. Consequently, net domestic financing of the budget amounting to 369 billion was significantly less than the budget target of 823 billion cedis.
Dr Acquah said government was able to meet all its financial requirements from the non-bank private sector on the domestic money market, thereby improving its financial position with the banking system to the tune of some 551 billion as at the middle of May this year.
However, he said, domestic public debt stock rose by 3.9 per cent during the period.