China Loans Ghana 13 Million Dollars

China Loans Ghana 13 Million Dollars

China has offered a 13 billion dollars loan to Ghana to finance oil and gas infrastructure and agricultural development.

A senior IMF adviser, Roger Nord, said on Monday that the money is good for the African country and does not contravene any agreements with the International Monetary Fund.

Nord, of the IMF African Department, also said the continent would soon become the recipient of massive capital flows and challenges would include using the funds productively and managing currency and interest rate volatility.

He was speaking in Nairobi , Kenya , on the sidelines of an event to launch the Regional Economic Outlook for Africa .

A big opportunity for Africa

Ghana 's loan deal was signed during a visit by President John Atta Mills to China . It involves three billion dollars loan from the Chinese Development Bank and a second deal for 9.87 billion dollars with the Chinese Exim Bank for road, railway and dam projects.

''Investment from China is a big opportunity for Africa . It is a good thing,'' Nord said.

Wise resource deployment necessary

''The challenge now for Ghana and other African countries is to use these resources wisely, of course as with all such deals, they involve potentially debts that need to be repaid so you need to make sure that this debt is productive, and the investment will generate economic return to repay the debt.'' Nord said.

He said the agreement did not go against any agreement the IMF has with Ghana .

African economies have been growing faster than most of the rest of the world and the IMF projects they will expand by an average 5.0 per cent this year and 5.5 per cent in 2011.

The fund projects global economic growth of 4.8 per cent in 2010.

Ghana , which is expected to start producing 120,000 barrels of oil per day by the end of this year, is expected to grow its GDP by 5.0 per cent in 2010 and 9.9 per cent in the following year, according to the IMF.

NAN/Yinka