Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison has said its Domestic Gold Purchase Programme has contributed to the current stability in the exchange rate market.

According to him, the programme has in the past few months been innovative in ensuring that the economy charts on a path to stability.

Addressing journalists at the 114th MPC press briefing on September 25, the Central Bank Governor provided an update on the impact of the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme and the Gold-for-Oil programme.

“We have bought gold to the tune of over $700million for reserves and we have also bought gold for oil probably higher than the $700million. If you put the two together, we are looking at over $1.4 or $1.5billion just from our domestic gold purchases programme,” he said.

“It is the single most important foreign exchange source in 2023 nearly doubled the amount of money that we have received from the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. We are very proud about that particular initiative. We’ve bought about 13.7 tonnes.

"We started this programme when we had in our reserves 8.7 tonnes and now we have more than doubled the volumes of tonnes that we held in our reserves just about two years ago,” he added.

On the domestic front, Dr. Addison said the overall improving macroeconomic conditions including the relatively strong economic growth as well as a drop-in inflation in August were proof that the policy mix under the three-year IMF Extended Credit Facility is beginning to yield results.

“Economic activity is rebounding strongly, the exchange rate is stabilising, inflation is declining, and level of foreign exchange reserves has improved. Sustained improvement in these indicators should result in the restoration of real incomes and purchasing power,” he said.

Meanwhile, figures from Ghana Statistical Service for August 2023 saw headline inflation decline to 40.1 percent, from 43.1 percent in July 2023.

The observed decline, according to the figures, determined that inflation was broad-based, with a stronger easing of food price pressures and the sustained easing of non-food price pressures observed in recent months.

NOQ