The cedi has often been cited as a better performing currency in a region where currency volatility is the norm.
Ghana’s cedi currency has jumped more than 40% against the US dollar this year, far outperforming its African and emerging market peers, shrinking the cost of the country’s foreign debt and giving it more fiscal breathing room.
The rally, which has surprised some investors, is another much-needed boost for the West African nation as it claws its way back from debt default and a punishing economic crisis.
According to LSEG data, the cedi has gained 42% against the dollar since January and was changing hands near 10.20 to the greenback on Wednesday morning.
“We have reduced our total debt over the last five months by almost 150 billion cedis, which is very significant,” Ghanaian President John Mahama told a session during the African Development Bank annual meeting in Abidjan this week, citing the cedi’s strength.
“If that trajectory continues, the target of reaching 55-58% debt sustainability by 2028 will be reached by the end of this year. And that means that it begins to give us fiscal space to begin to invest in the most productive sectors of the economy,” he said.
While the US dollar has also been under pressure this year, the cedi’s performance stands in stark contrast to other African currencies.
Gold price
Investment bank JPMorgan, in a note to clients, said the gold windfall — with prices having chalked up 28 record highs by April — was a tailwind for the cedi.
Tellimer’s Hasnain Malik said in a note the country’s successful IMF programme, as well as restrictive monetary policy, has also helped the “extraordinary spike”.
Lutz Röhmeyer, head of portfolio management at Capitulum Asset Management, said local Ghanaian holders of US dollar debt exchanging their money back into cedis was also helping the gains.
On Monday, Ghana central bank governor Johnson Asiama, speaking at the Ghana CEO Summit in Accra, said the central bank had not used its own reserves to support the cedi.
He cited tight monetary policy, cleaner foreign exchange auctions and stronger remittance flows.
But Malik and Röhmeyer warned the rally may not last.
“There are reasons for caution after this spike,” Malik wrote in the Tellimer note, citing drops in oil and cocoa prices, and IMF forecasts that implied a coming depreciation.
