IMF sees surge in US real interest rates affecting frontier markets

Emerging markets and developing economies will be badly hit should real interest rates begin to surge in the United States, Samier Jahjah, Ghana Country Director of the International Monetary Fund, projected here late Monday. Jahjah made this remark after delivering a paper on Managing Volatile Capital Inflows for Sub-Saharan African Frontier Markets. Sub-Saharan economies, which may have benefited immensely from the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program, are now reeling under some pressure after the announcement of tapering off of the quantitative easing. The IMF official noted a significant drop and or withdrawal of investments from some developing economies. The countries should also "improve capacity to systemic risks build-up and use macro-prudential policies more timely, as well as exercise caution in the use of capital flow management measures by evaluating possible negative effects on financial sector deepening and investors' relations". "Ghana has not suffered too much reversal of capital inflows; however the tapering affected the commodity prices for the country' s cocoa and gold in 2013," Henry Kofi Wampah, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, pointed out in an intervention. According to him, the country lost 1.3 billion dollars in the sale of its gold and cocoa in 2013, compared with the earnings in 2012.