(Adds background, government statistician comment)
By Cooper Inveen and Christian Akorlie
ACCRA, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Ghana's consumer inflation
slowed slightly to 53.6% year-on-year in January from a more
than two-decade high of 54.1% in the previous month, data showed
on Wednesday, marking the first month that inflation has slowed
since May 2021.
The country is reckoning with its worst economic crisis in a
generation as capital outflows, a crushing debt-service burden
and rapid currency depreciation wreak havoc on government and
household finances.
Ghana's central bank has hiked lending rates by 13.5
percentage points since early last year in an effort to contain
price rises.
Food inflation was up slightly to 61.0% in January, while
non-food inflation was down to 47.9%, Ghana Statistical Service
figures showed, with food and non-alcoholic beverages the
category that contributed the most to overall inflation.
The gap between local and imported inflation narrowed in
January, compared with the previous month, with prices up 62.5%
for imported items and 50.0% for locally produced goods.
"This suggests that the variation in the exchange rate may
have contributed to the marginal drop in inflation we saw in
January 2023, though we are yet to do a robust analysis,"
government statistician Samuel Kobina Annim told reporters.
The cedi was highly volatile in December, gaining
about 50% against the dollar in a matter of days around the time
the country reached a staff-level agreement with the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a $3 billion rescue
package, after steep falls earlier in the year.
In January the cedi retraced some of December's gains.
Ghana on Tuesday announced the closure of a long-delayed
domestic debt exchange plan, but it must now restructure its
external debts before getting IMF executive board approval for
the rescue package.
(Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Cooper Inveen; Writing by
Nellie Peyton; Editing by Alexander Winning and Shounak
Dasgupta)
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.