Ghana’s central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged for the third consecutive meeting of its monetary policy committee after inflation climbed for the first time in 19 months.

The policy rate was maintained at 13.5 percent, Bank of Ghana Governor Kwesi Amissah-Arthur told reporters on Saturday in the capital, Accra. Six of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast the decision. One person expected it to be either maintained or increased, without giving a specific figure.
Inflation accelerated to 9.1 percent in January from 8.6 percent the month before, as gasoline prices jumped 30 percent and the cedi depreciated. The cedi which fell 3.7 percent against the dollar last year, lost 5.5 percent in January, pushing up import costs. Still, inflation will remain within the target band of 8.5 percent, plus or minus 2 percentage points, at the end of the year, Amissah-Arthur said.
“The recent hike in fuel prices and the currency weakness are probably already having an impact on prices,” Alan Cameron, sub-Saharan Africa analyst at Business Monitor International said in an e-mailed note.
Inflation, which fell from a five-year peak of 20.7 percent in June 2009, prompted the central bank to lower its key lending four times between November 2009 and July last year in a bid to convince commercial lenders to lower their own interest levels.
With banks’ lending rates for November to January remaining at 27.6 percent, the central bank “will not see a great need to adjust the prime rate just yet,” Razia Khan, London-based head of Africa research at Standard Chartered Plc, said in an e-mailed note on Saturday. “The effort to boost bank lending continues,” she said.
(Source: Bloomberg)