The Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has stated that government is in the process of reviewing the date used in calculating the exchange rate for importers at the ports.
By this, the process for calculating the cost of imports in relation to the dollar will be extended from one week to six months.
The move follows complaints from importers and other business associations about the impact of the depreciation of the cedi on their operations at the ports.
Speaking at the opening of the Ghana Industrial Summit and Exhibition 2018, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia stated that among the various initiatives government is working on to ensure efficiency of business transactions at the ports, is the review of the period for calculating the cost of imports.
“The issues that have come up at the ports is work in progress, so whatever we are doing we are reviewing very regularly to see where the issues are and what people are complaining about and see what we can do to make things better for people.”
“One of the areas that we have received at the Economic Management Team for example is the regularity in the changes of the exchange rate every Monday at the ports and that for a lot of importers is a bit destabilizing because you may import your goods and the exchange rate is “A” and by the time you realize its “A” plus something and then your calculation of the duty you should have paid suddenly changes and that can be a bit destabilizing,” he added.
Dr. Bawumia assured that government has received complains over the issue and is working to address it.
“We have looked at this and we think that is something we have to address, it’s not something that makes sense when you look at what you need to do in terms of predictability because business works well in predictable environments so our proposal is that instead of doing the Monday changes in the exchange rates at the ports we should look at it every six months or maybe even three.”
The Ghana Industrial Summit and Exhibition 2018 is a three day summit that will focus on challenges in Ghana’s manufacturing industry and how they can be addressed.
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