Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Foreign Exchange Rate

Foreign Exchange Rate

The country’s currency the cedi has been struggling for years to stay stable against major trading currencies like the American dollar, British Pound and Euro.

In 2014 after hitting a all time high the Bank of Ghana begun rolling out a number of rules to save the cedi.

As early as February 2014 the cedi had already depreciated by over eight percent against the U.S dollar.

Among the rules, cash withdrawals over the counter from foreign exchange accounts and foreign currency accounts were only permitted for travel purposes outside Ghana and were not to exceed US$10,000.00 or its equivalent in convertible foreign currency, per person, per travel.

While cheques or cheque books, issued on Foreign Exchange Accounts and Foreign Currency Accounts and transfers from one foreign currency denominated account to another were not permitted.

Authorized dealers also per the rules were not be allowed to sell foreign exchange for the credit of Foreign Exchange Accounts and Foreign Currency Accounts of their customers.

In June of that same year however the Bank of Ghana ditched some of the rules it introduced in February to save the cedi from further fall against the major foreign currencies especially the dollar following a review.

Developments in the nominal bilateral exchange rates of the cedi against the three core currencies the US dollar, the pound sterling and the euro show that from January to December 2015, the cedi depreciated, cumulatively, by 15.7, 11.3 and 5.7 percent against the US dollar, the pound and the euro respectively.

This is compared with similar depreciations of 31.3, 26.3 and 20.5 percent against the US dollar, the pound and the euro respectively over the corresponding period of 2014.

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Credit: BoG
Credit: BoG

Performance of cedi in 2015

Credit: BoG
Credit: BoG