Ghana cedi makes extraordinary gain in months

December 15, 2022 Elwin Mandowa

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Ghana’s local currency the cedi has gained more than 12% against the US Dollar to hit its strongest level in two and a half months.

This was after the country reached a staff-level agreement over $3 billion with the International Monetary Fund.

The currency strengthened to 9.5 to the dollar in a fourth straight session of gains, though is still down nearly 40% since the start of the year, Refinitiv data showed.

On Tuesday , the West African country and the IMF announced that they had reached an agreement.The IMF board approval of the proposed three-year loan is expected “early next year”, according to Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.

Some market watchers and analysts may attribute it to the Debt Exchange Programme as the government defined the parameters of the programme to pave way for a programme from the International Monetary Fund.

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The local currency had remained relatively stable, particularly to the dollar in recent weeks.

It saw a week-on-week appreciation of 3.12 per cent against the dollar, 0.88 per cent to the pound and 3.79 per cent versus the euro on the retail market.

It has however depreciated by a little over 50 per cent since the beginning of the year.