CEDI DEPRECIATING AGAINST US DOLLAR

The Ghana Cedi appears to be coming under
some pressure again only days into 2015. This
has seen the local currency go down marginally.
For instance as at last month, one needed 3
Ghana cedis 1 pesewa to get a dollar from the
Forex Bureau, but it is now 3 Ghana cedis 4
pesewas to a dollar.
Head of Research at Group Nduom, Kofi Ampah
attributes this to increasing demand for dollars
for imports.
“Greatly we look at it from the point of traders
looking at the fact that they need to restock.
You know that most of these industries at the
beginning of the year will also have made
projections whether repatriation of capital,
which could be one reason.
So therefore they would have to change their
local currency to dollar.”
Industries may be needing more dollars to also
import whatever commodity they work with which
could account for the slight depreciation of the
cedi, he added.
Mr. Kofi Ampah however advised traders not to
panic saying “it is early days yet”.
Meanwhile, a Senior Economist at the University
of Ghana Legon, Dr. Eric Osei Assibey says
government might have to come up with some
new measures to halt any free fall.
“Government has to be very proactive and
anticipate to be able to put all these scenarios
into consideration and do a better prediction of
how the currency is going to be.”