Monetary Policy Committee keeps policy rate unchanged

The Bank of Ghana has kept the Policy Rate unchanged at 15 per cent, acting bank Governor Dr. Henry Kofi Wampah told a news conference on Wednesday.

"The MPC is of the view that the risks to inflation and the growth outlook are fairly balanced. Consequently, the committee has decided to leave the policy rate unchanged at 15 per cent", Dr. Wampah said.

Dr. Wampah said the forthcoming food crop harvest season would have a moderating effect on inflation, which would remain within the bank's target band for the year.

He said government's fiscal operations resulted in an overall cash deficit of GHc4.1 billion.

The stock of domestic debt between Jan and July end was 13.7 billion, up from 11.8 billion cedis as at Dec 2011 while external debt declined marginally from $7.8 billion in December to $7.7 billion at the end of July, bringing the total public debt at the end of July 2012 to GHc28.3 billion equivalent to 44.4 per cent of Gross Domestic Product up from 42.6 percent at the end of December.

Total exports from January to July grew by 12.9 per cent year-on-year to 8.4 billion dollars, mainly driven by gold, cocoa and oil.

Imports amounted to $10.4 billion, representing 18.3 per cent growth year-on-year while non oil imports were $8.4 billion. Overall balance of payment resulted in a deficit of $2 billion.

The Gross International Reserves was $4.2 billion dollars at the end of August or 2.4 months import cover compared to $4.5 billion a year ago.