Cedi showed great strength against major trading currencies in H1 2023 – Ofori-Atta

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, declared that the Ghana cedi performed well against major trading currencies in the first half of the year.

He claims that the Cedi, which has depreciated by an average of 20% against major currencies in the last two years, has only declined by 1.8% in the first half of 2023.

He stated that the administration is concentrating its efforts on containing the depreciation.

“Overall, first-quarter growth for 2023 was 4.2 percent, up from 3.0 percent recorded for the same period in 2022. This growth largely reflected an increase in the services sector which recorded a growth of 10.1 percent,” he said.

“Headline inflation eased in the first half of 2023. From the peak at 54.1 percent in December 2022, headline inflation gradually trended downwards from 53.6 percent in January 2023 to 42.5 percent in June 2023. The moderation in inflation was largely supported by monetary policy tightening, relative stability in the exchange rate and lower and stable ex-pump petroleum prices;"

“Cumulatively, the Ghana cedi depreciated by 22.1 percent against the US Dollar in the year to July 17, 2021, compared to 21.1 percent in the same period in 2022. The Cedi, excluding the January 2023 depreciation of 20%, has depreciated by an impressive 1.84% between February and July 17, 2023.”

Mr Ofori-Atta also revealed that “total export receipts fell by 7.9 percent to US$8,178.56 million on the back of lower crude oil exports receipts. Crude oil exports declined by 41.3 percent year-on-year due to a 21.4 percent decline in volumes and 25.3 percent fall in prices;

“Current account recorded a provisional surplus of US$849.16 million (1.1% of GDP) compared with a deficit of US$1,111.87 million (1.5% of GDP) for the same period in 2022; and Gross International Reserves dropped from US$6.2 billion at the end of December 2023 to US$5.3 billion (2.5 months of import cover) in June 2023, reflecting BOG’s objectives of reducing their foreign liabilities in line with the IMF programme.”

“Net International Reserves received a boost from gold reserves and improved to US$2,353.95 million equivalent to 1.1 months of import cover, compared with US$1,440.00 million (0.6 months of import cover) recorded at the end of December 2022.”