Cedi in impressive performance against the pound

Accra, Oct. 10, GNA - Ghana cedi on Friday recorded a 0% year to date depreciation against the pound following a twelve day continuous rise versus the U.K currency, the Gold Coast Securities (GCS)-Cedi Index has shown.

Commenting on the performance to the Ghana News Agency, the GCS research team described the performance as a significant achievement in recent times.

The team cited reasons such as the tightening of the immigration policy in UK, which is resulting in many Ghanaians returning home, the upward review of the prime rate by the Bank of Ghana and the upcoming elections, which has led to a reduction in the number of people travelling abroad.

In effect, the GCS-Cedi Index, which measures the average performance of the cedi against it's major trading currencies, on Friday gained 0.44 points to drop from 115.03 points on Thursday to 114.59 points.

It showed a further appreciation of the Ghana cedi against the euro, recovering from some of the losses it accrued at the start of the week. It, however, depreciated against the CFA and stabilized to the dollar. The year-to-date shows a deprecation of the cedi by 17.20 per cent, 9.41 per cent and 0.00 percent to the Dollar, the Euro and the Pound respectively, but indicates 8.33 per cent appreciation against the CFA.

The cedi gains value when the index goes down and it loses value when the index goes up. On a whole, the cedi remained stable to the dollar, appreciated by 3.87 GH pesewas to the Pound and 0.45 GH pesewas to the Euro. It however depreciated by 0.01 GH pesewas to the CFA.

Change for the year to date and change base year (July 03 2007) to date now stands at 10.33 per cent and 14.59 per cent respectively. The Index is calculated as a geometric weighted average of changes in the four currency rates against the cedi at the Inter-bank market, relative to a base of 100 set on 03 July 2007, when the Bank of Ghana redenominated the national currency at a base value of 100. It is inversely proportional. A quote of 105.50 means the cedi value has depreciated by 5.50 per cent since the base period, while a quote of 85.3 means the cedi has gained by 14.77 per cent since its base year. The following are the exchange rates for the four currencies on Friday, October 10, 2008.

Currency Buying Selling Depreciation (-)/Appreciation (+) (GH¢) (GH¢) (Gp)

Dollar 1.1155 1.1517 - 0.00

Pound 1.8867 1.9483 + 3.87

Euro 1.5218 1.5707 + 0.45

Equivalence of currency to one GH¢

CFA 417.62 431.05 - 0.01