Ghana’s cedi retreated against the dollar, extending the world’s worst decline this year after the Ukrainian hryvnia, as greenback supplies weren’t enough to meet demand in West Africa’s second-biggest economy.
The currency of Africa’s second-largest gold producer weakened as much as 3.5 percent and traded 1.3 percent lower at 3.0750 per dollar by 1:49 p.m. in the capital, Accra, bringing its loss this year to 23 percent.
‘Demand is still outweighing supply,’ Richard Dei-Tutu, a currency trader at Accra-based CAL Bank Ltd., said by phone. ‘Mining companies that are supplying most of the dollars at the moment are demanding high prices.’
The central bank, which sells dollars to banks at irregular intervals, may offer the currency before the end of the day, Dei-Tutu said. Mining companies ‘ask for a higher price as compared with the price at which the central bank sells to us,’ he said.
The Bank of Ghana doesn’t keep data on supplies of dollars by companies, Head of Treasury Yao Abalo said by phone today. He declined to comment on whether the central bank will offer dollars.
To contact the reporter on this story: Moses Mozart Dzawu in Accra at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Vernon Wessels at [email protected] Emily Bowers, Chris Kirkham
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