Business News of Saturday, 15 April 2023

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Ghana’s inflation could decline as sharply as it increased – Economist explains

Inflation Inflation

An economist, Courage Boti, has indicated that it is possible for Ghana’s inflation to decline as sharply as it increased in recent times.

Even though the decline recorded in March 2023 was quite marginal, the economist said he expected inflation to reduce by more than the 7.8%

He, however, projected that the country’s inflation may drop to about 28% by the end of the year.

“I expected a decline, but much lower than we have seen. I was expecting a sharp decrease to start from April otherwise it is not a surprise of the third consecutive month of decline as we have experienced worse inflation in the past,” citibusinessnews.com quoted him as saying.

Corauge Boti also added that to sustain the current decline being witnessed, a stronger foreign exchange regime is essential.

“At this pace and momentum, we can expect a sharper decrease going forward, driven largely by current developments where we have seen at the last pricing window fuel prices have declined at the pumps, and the exchange rate, although volatile has seen some trend of resilience,” he noted.

He also added, “So we are in that period where you will see that inflation will go down like it went up, and the expectation is that we could be ending the year around 28 or 29 levels if everything holds constant.”

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has said the inflation rate for March 2023 will decline to 45.0 percent.

This comes after the rate for February was recorded at 52.8 percent. This current decline, however, represents a 7.8 percentage point drop.

This would be the third consecutive decline that the country has witnessed in its national inflation rate after marginal declines were recorded in January and February 2023.

On a month-on-month basis, the GSS said the difference in inflation between February 2023 and March 2023 was -1.2 percent while food inflation was pegged at 50.8 percent from 59.1 percent recorded in February.

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