The cumulative depreciation of the cedi for 2014 was 31.2 per cent compared to 14.5 per cent in 2013, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has said.

According to Dr Henry Kofi Wampah, BoG Governor, in January 2015, the cedi depreciated by 1.3 per cent compared with 7.8 per cent depreciation a year ago.

He said the cedi depreciated by 26.7 per cent between January and June 2014 but remained relatively stable during the second half, depreciating by 4.5 per cent.

Dr Wampah, at the BoG Monetary Policy Committee media briefing in Accra on Wednesday, said provisional estimates for the balance of payments for 2014, recorded a deficit of $85.2 million, a significant improvement from the $874.2 million recorded in 2013.

The Governor observed that this was due to a marked improvement in the current account.

He said the current account deficit narrowed by $2.1 billion from a deficit of $5.7 billion or 11.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013 to $3.6 billion or 9.2 per cent of GDP in 2014.

Dr Wampah said this was driven by an improvement in the trade balance.

He said the balance on merchandise trade improved from a deficit of $3.8 billion or 7.9 per cent of GDP in 2013 to $1.6 billion or 4.1 per cent of GDP at the end of 2014.

He said the services; income and transfer account net, recorded a deficit of $2 billion in 2014 compared with a deficit of $ 1.9 billion in 2013.

The Governor said the capital and financial account decreased to $ 3.3 billion from $ 5.4 billion in 2013.

He said this was mainly due to a $ 777.2 million decrease in net inflow of official capital, a $1.4 billion decline in short-term capital while net portfolio investments increased by $177 million.

He said for the first month of 2015, the trade balance recorded a deficit of $257.4 million compared to a deficit of $231.9 million in January 2014.

He said exports of goods were provisionally estimated at $900.7 million while imports were $1.2 billion.

He said gross foreign assets; defined as gross international reserves plus encumbered assets and petroleum funds, stood at $4.9 billion at the end of January 2015, representing 2.9 months of imports, unchanged compared to the same period in 2014.

“In December 2014, gross foreign assets was $5.5 billion, equivalent to 3.2 months of imports,” he stated.