The bond market could recover as the macro economy improves gradually while the government continues to service the new and old papers.

However, the recovery could remain distant from pre-Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) levels as investors maintain a firm interest in T-bills.

“We anticipate new post-DDEP record highs as investors spice up market activity with the Repo strategy”, Databank Research said.

Meanwhile, there is an expected uptick in corporate issuance as yields exit the 30% territory.

Corporate entities are therefore expected to raise funds on the fixed-income market as the regulator works to operationalise the commercial paper market for shorter-dated securities.

“We believe improving liquidity levels in the money market and yield expectations will augur well for corporate issuance in 2024. We expect corporate insurance will present competitive opportunities to investors seeking to diversify investment portfolios from longer-dated GoG [Government of Ghana] securities”, Databank Research added.

In 2023, the secondary bond market showed some potency following the DDEP.

Despite a slight upturn in turnover, it was generally listless as investor appetite favoured shorter-dated securities.

Most activity recorded in the market constituted bond exchanges and repos banks used to manage liquidity.

Ghana completed DDEP in quarter one , 2023

Ghana completed the first phase of the Domestic Debt Exchange Program in the first quarter of 2023, exchanging GH¢82.99bn old bonds for new ones with an 85% success rate.

In the third quarter of 2023, the second phase had a high participation rate of 92% ($741.34 million) and 97% (GH¢7.70 billon) for restructuring US dollar-denominated domestic bonds and Cocoa bills, respectively.