Ghana’s inflation rate declined unexpectedly in August to a 10-month low, easing pressure on the central bank to keep raising borrowing costs.
(Bloomberg) — Ghana’s inflation rate declined unexpectedly in August to a 10-month low, easing pressure on the central bank to keep raising borrowing costs.
Annual inflation moderated to 40.1% from 43.1% in July, Government Statistician Samuel Kobina Annim told reporters in the capital, Accra on Wednesday. That was the slowest rate of change since October.
The median estimate of five economists in a Bloomberg survey was for price pressures to advance by 43.7%.
The main drivers of the slowdown were food prices, said Annim. Food inflation slowed to 51.9% from 55% in July, and non-food price growth was 30.9% compared with 33.8%. Prices declined 0.2% month-on-month.
“The sharper than expected slowdown in headline inflation was broadbased,” said Bloomberg Africa economist Yvonne Mhango. “A more stable cedi helped moderate inflation.”
The cedi, which has been fairly stable since the country won an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund in May, was unchanged at 11.45 per dollar following publication of the data. The yield on Ghana’s 2032 dollar bonds dropped five basis points to 23.11%.
The central bank raised rates by 50 basis points to 30% in July because it said price pressures were not easing fast enough, bringing cumulative increases to 16.5 percentage points since November 2021. The monetary policy committee will announce a new rate on Sept. 25.
–With assistance from Robert Brand.
(Updates with more details from fourth paragraph.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.