The Ghana cedi suffered a string of losses against most of the major currencies last week. It ended last week having depreciated by some 4 percent from the beginning of the year to date. As of last Friday you needed 1 Ghana cedi 54 pesewas to buy the dollar. For what to expect this week, Joy Business called up the Head of Research at Gold Coast Securities who said given the trend, this week is not likely to see any significant change in the performance of the local currency against its foreign partners. He agreed the fall is the steepest the Ghana Cedi has suffered since it was redenominated in July 2007. Some businesses, reeling from the impact of the depreciation of the currency say they may be forced to pass on their foreign exchange losses to consumers. The Director of Corporate Affairs at commodity trading and manufacturing firm Finatrade Group John Awuni, said “daily we are losing heavily as a result of the depreciation of the cedi.” He said if the steep depreciation of the Ghana cedi does not stop anytime soon, businesses will add on to the prices of goods which he said have gone up by 22 per cent already. Stanchart’s Research Head for Africa, Razia Khan said some sort of regulatory intervention is required in the short term to save the cedi from further decline. “Any exchange rate that is determined by demand and supply of foreign exchange is likely to result in the best outcome for the country. But when we see a situation such as we’ve seen in Ghana in recent months – back in November the dollar-cedi exchange rate was around 1.43 and then in a very short space of time we’ve gone all the way up to 1.58. What has changed so fundamentally in the economy to allow this to happen? I think not withstanding the overall belief that the best thing for Ghana would be to allow its exchange rate to be determined by the forces of demand and supply, there is still a role for some sort of regulatory smoothening of the exchange rate on occasions where it is warranted,” she said. Razia Khan believes it was time the government adopted such a regulatory framework to strengthen the local currency. The Bank of Ghana said it is confident the currency will gain some strength in the coming days. Source: Joy Business/Ghana