Ghana will suffer economic effect of US attacks - Maafo

Ghana has also begun counting the effect last Tuesday’s terrorist attack on the United States would have on its ailing economy.

The rising price of crude oil on the world market following terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and Pentagon in Washington would have negative impact on Ghana's economy, the country’s Finance Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo told journalists in Accra.

Mr Osafo-Maafo, MP said, "market speculation after the attacks have already shot up crude oil prices and this is our major concern".

The International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) Brent crude oil futures surged $3.60 a barrel to $31.05, rising above the $30 mark for the first time since December 2000, Reuters report said.

The surge appeared to be the biggest one-day move since the Gulf Crisis in 1990-91. The Finance Minister said any consequence of the attack on the dollar was likely to affect Ghana. Additionally, any information on world trade that would be lost would affect Ghana as a member of the international community. The Minister however, expressed optimism that there was back-up information on world trade.

On a positive note gold price surged in Europe as nervous investors scrambled for safety in solid assets with the precious metal jumping as much as $16 an ounce in London trading, with the afternoon fixing hitting $287.00 from $271.40 in the morning and compared with $272 before the first strike.

Loss of life was expected to be catastrophic from the collapse of the giant towers of the World Trade Centre, where some 50,000 people worked. The two 110-story towers collapsed one at a time in a huge cloud of smoke and fire when hijackers smashed two airplanes into them at 18-minute interval.

"As this enormous tragedy is unprecedented in American history no one can have any comfort in guessing what the financial markets outcome will be," said Michael Holland, Chairman of New York-based money manager Holland & Company PLC.

"Currently, all of us are concerned with the human casualties and the markets will simply have to sort themselves out over the next few weeks," Holland said. The New York Mercantile Exchange was closed. Several top financial services firms had offices in the destroyed World Trade Centre, including Morgan Stanley, Switzerland's Credit Suisse Group and Germany's Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank.