Ghana will allow trading in Chinese yuan this year - BoG

Ghana will allow banks to quote yuan rates and sell the Chinese currency this year as more businesses in West Africa’s second-biggest economy trade with the Asian nation.

“Many more people are traveling to China to do business and we think we should make life a bit easier for them,” Bank of Ghana Governor Kofi Wampah said by phone today from the capital, Accra. “It will also ease pressure on the cedi as this will decrease the demand for dollars.”

Ghana’s cedi has dropped 20 percent against the dollar since the start of 2013 as companies demanded the U.S. currency to pay for imports in one of the continent’s fastest-growing economies. Traders heading to China need to take dollars that would later be converted to yuan, according to Wampah.

The cedi weakened 0.4 percent to 2.3888 per dollar by 1:33 p.m. in Accra and traded at 0.39 cedis per Chinese renminbi, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The central bank introduced new currency-trading regulations for banks to improve liquidity and boost transparency, Wampah said, without giving details on the rules.