(Reuters) -Ghana’s new central bank governor said on Monday that inflation <GHCPIY=ECI> remains uncomfortably high and would require a balanced monetary policy.
Consumer price inflation was 23.1% in February, down from a peak of over 54% in December 2022 but well above the Bank of Ghana’s targets of 8% with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
The West African gold and cocoa producer defaulted on most of its external debt in 2022, leading to a painful restructuring which is at its tail end.
“While inflation is easing, it remains uncomfortably high … and progress has been slow,” new bank governor Johnson Asiama said in opening remarks ahead of his first monetary policy meeting.
“Our task over the next few days is … to reach a policy stance that reinforces the disinflation path without undermining the recovery or destabilising market expectations,” he said.
The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee is due to announce its next rate decision on March 28.
Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson said during his budget speech this month that steep spending cuts would allow Ghana to drive down inflation to 11.9% by the end of the year.
Asiama, however, sounded a note of caution. He said gold exports and remittances had contributed to a trade surplus and reserve build-up but that global tariffs, geopolitical tensions and weakening Chinese demand presented risks.
He added it was unclear whether current fiscal measures would be sufficient to satisfy International Monetary Fund’s reviews of its three-year lending programme with Ghana, the next of which is expected in April.
Asiama has worked at the Bank of Ghana for more than 23 years, serving as a second deputy governor from 2016-17.
(Reporting by Anait Miridzhanian,Editing by Bate Felix and Ed Osmond)
