<\/p>\n
Ghana\u2019s cedi slumped to become the world\u2019s worst-performing currency this year as investors continued to squeeze foreign capital to the west African country before a deal with the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n
The currency of the world\u2019s second-biggest cocoa producer depreciated as much as 3.3% Monday, before paring the loss to 11.2750 per dollar at 3:30 p.m. in the capital Accra.<\/p>\n
That took its losses this year to more than 45%, the most among 148 currencies tracked by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
The cedi\u2019s slide has accelerated in the past month as Ghana began formal negotiations with the IMF for an extended credit facility. The country is hoping to receive up to $3 billion in loans over three years under the arrangement to spur its finances and support the balance of payments.<\/p>\n
\u201cInvestors were expecting to hear something in Washington last week but unfortunately nothing emerged,\u201d Simon Quijano-Evans, a London-based economist at Gemcorp Capital, said in emailed comment, referring to the week-long IMF annual meetings that ended October 16. \u201cIt was radio silence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The country sought help from the IMF after losing access to the Eurobond market this year and as homegrown policies, including cutting 2022 discretionary expenditure by up to 30%, failed to stem a selloff in its international bonds. The premium investors demand over US Treasuries to hold Ghana debt has widened to 2,669 basis points.<\/p>\n
Holdings by foreign investors in outstanding domestic government and corporate bonds fell to 12.3% at the end of August, the lowest ever, from a 2022 peak of 17.3% in April, according to Central Securities Depository Ghana Ltd. data. The nation\u2019s domestic bonds are currently trading at an average yield of 41.9%, the highest in emerging markets, according to indexes tracked by Bloomberg.
Ghana\u2019s gross international reserves declined to $6.6 billion at end-September, enough to cover only 2.9 months of imports. That\u2019s down from $10.7 billion a year earlier, which gave 4.8 months of import cover.<\/p>\n
The currency, deriving its name from sedie, the local Akan language name for cowrie shell, has overtaken the losses of the Sri Lankan rupee, which has slid nearly 45% against the greenback this year as the country also seeks to unlock an IMF loan following a debt default.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ghana\u2019s cedi slumped to become the world\u2019s worst-performing currency this year as investors continued to squeeze foreign capital to the west African country before a deal with the International Monetary Fund. The currency of the world\u2019s second-biggest cocoa producer depreciated as much as 3.3% Monday, before paring the loss to 11.2750 per dollar at 3:30 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1150342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[672,673,85,5551,5973,2552],"class_list":["post-1227114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-cedi","tag-currency","tag-ghana","tag-performing","tag-worlds","tag-worst"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1227114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}