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Mr Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance, says the medium term prospects of the economy are bright and that Government would be firm in the management of any volatility that might occur. "Government will be bold to tackle any challenges facing the economy before the situation deteriorates," Mr Terkper said when he briefed a cross section of journalists on measures to address the fall of the cedi against the dollar. The cedi fell about 20 per cent in 2013 and has since the beginning of the year dropped by 7.8 per cent, prompting the Bank of Ghana to revise its rules on foreign exchange transactions and to increase its policy rate by 200 basis points to 18 per cent. Mr Terkper said the measures must not be seen as targeted at particular people or groups to disadvantage them but meant to correct distortions due to shift in inflows as a result of falling commodity prices. He said despite huge exposure as a commodity exporting country, the economy had done well and it had been able to remain resilient and harbour shocks. He said the long-term sustainable solution was for the country to diversify exports, add value to its primary products and to adopt best practices in foreign exchange transactions all over the world. Mr Terkper said the Bank of Ghana was in the process of revising its foreign exchange and banking laws in line with best practices. He said foreign exchange losses were a huge drain on the Government and every action would be taken to stabilize the cedi. On salary to public sector workers, the Minister said Government was not freezing wages across board but noted that the single spine salary structure was having a heavy toll on revenue and there was the need for a moratorium on wages. He said Government was discussing with stakeholders on the wage issue and would not want to bring into the open the discussions so far.