ACCRA (Reuters) -Ghana’s central bank held an emergency meeting on Thursday to review economic data and market developments, but did not discuss its key policy rate, Governor Johnson Asiama said, adding the main meeting is in 10 days.
In a statement released late on Wednesday, the Bank of Ghana said it would announce its policy decision the day after the special session.
The central bank’s fourth rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee meeting for the year had initially been slated to start on July 28, with the rate decision expected on July 30.
At a Thursday event in the capital, Accra, the central bank governor said that members of the MPC had not discussed the policy rate at the emergency meeting.
They met to “review numbers and also take stock of some of the developments in the markets to get a sense of what is going on and what our options are ahead of their meeting,” Asiama said.
The governor added that the Monetary Policy Committee will reconvene in 10 days to work on a policy statement.
The Bank of Ghana last held a scheduled MPC meeting in May, where it opted to maintain the policy rate at 28.0%, maintaining its tight monetary policy as inflationary pressures continued to ease due to exchange rate stability and fiscal consolidation.
Ghana’s consumer price inflation slowed for the sixth month in a row to 13.7% in June, its lowest level since 2021, while the bellwether producer price inflation fell to 5.9% year-on-year in June compared with 10.2% the previous month.
The finance minister is expected to present the cocoa-, gold-, and oil-producing West African nation’s mid-year fiscal policy review on July 24.
(Reporting by Emmanuel Bruce and Christian Akorlie Writing by Bate Felix and Sandra MalerEditing by Andrew Cawthorne)
