ACCRA (Reuters) -Ghana’s producer price inflation slowed to 52.2% year-on-year in December from 78.1% the previous month, statistics service data showed on Wednesday.
The crisis-hit nation’s consumer price inflation accelerated to 54.1% year-on-year last month, data released last week showed, driven by rising fuel, utilities and food costs. International reserves have dwindled to less than two months of import cover.
Anthony Krakah, head of the statistics service’s industrial statistics division, said the steep decline in month-on-month producer inflation could bode well for next month’s headline inflation figure.
“Consumer inflation is likely to decline if the cedi stabilises, but we don’t know for sure,” Krakah told Reuters.
Ghana’s troubled cedi currency saw rapid appreciation against the dollar in December after a staff level agreement for a $3 billion IMF support package was reached at the start of that month. It has since fallen back towards record lows.
(Reporting by Christian Akorlie; writing by Cooper Inveen; editing by Jason Neely and Gareth Jones)