Cedi weakens to record low as importers buy Dollars

Ghana’s cedi declined to the weakest on record as manufacturers and traders bought dollars to import raw materials and goods to the West African nation.

The currency of the world’s second-biggest cocoa producer depreciated for a fourth day, losing as much as 0.5 percent to 1.6033 per dollar, the weakest level since at least 1994, when Bloomberg started compiling the data. It traded down 0.2 percent to 1.5995 per dollar as of 1:08 p.m. in Accra, the capital, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“There is still demand for dollars on the market from the manufacturing and the commerce industry,” Othniel Kwainoe, a currency trader at the Ghanaian unit of Standard Chartered Bank Plc, said in a telephone interview. “What the central bank will do will be most critical at this point.” Inflows of dollars from exporters were “woefully inadequate,” he said.