Online Reporter
Ghana’s inflation rate dropped to the lowest level in more than three years, as the country’s world-beating currency helped reduce the cost of imports.
Inflation slowed for a fifth straight month to 18.4 percent in May, compared with 21.2 percent in the previous month, Government Statistician Alhassan Iddrisu told reporters in the capital, Accra, yesterday. Prices rose 0.7 percent in the month, he said.
Ghana, Africa’s biggest gold producer, is benefiting from a surge in the price of the metal that’s fuelled a 44 percent rally in the cedi this year — making it the world’s best-performing currency at Tuesday’s close. The gain, along with a decline in global oil prices, is helping rein in price-growth that exceeded 20 percent for the past three years.
The cedi weakened 0.1 percent to 10.25 per dollar by 10:12am in Accra.
Food inflation rose 22.8 percent and non-food costs increased 14.4 percent, Iddrisu said.
The improving inflation reading may enable the central bank to cut interest rates next month, after it left the gauge unchanged at 28 percent in May, Courage Boti, an economist at Accra-based GCB Bank Ltd., said before the data release. He anticipates a reduction in borrowing costs by as much as 200 basis points. — Bloomberg
