20100107

ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana's President John Atta Mills said on Thursday his policy priority for 2010 was the ongoing effort to guide the West African country's economic recovery from high inflation and twin deficits.

Mills' administration, which took office last January after a razor-thin election victory, has been battling to get the inflation rate, over 20 percent for months, under control.

"We are on the right road to recovery and I am sure that very soon this will begin to reflect in the pocket of Ghanaians," Mills told a press conference to mark the first anniversary of taking power.

Year-on-year inflation fell to 16.92 percent in November, its fifth consecutive monthly fall, though still above the government's year-end target of around 15 percent.

Ghana's public deficit was was estimated at 10.2 percent of national output in September, and the official target is to narrow that to 3 percent in the medium term.

"When you bring inflation from 24 percent to about 15 percent, you're not telling the world that you've reached the end of the road and therefore we can live happily thereafter," Mills said.

Ghana, a major cocoa and gold producer, expects its public finances to be boosted by revenue from oil exports from the Jubilee field, due to come on stream in the final quarter of this year.

London-listed Tullow Oil, one of the stakeholders in the field, said on Wednesday work was on track for a late-2010 startup .