Ghana to Sell $34.4 Million of 3-Year Bonds

Ghana will sell 50 million cedis ($35.2 million) of three-year fixed-rate bonds on July 30, the Bank of Ghana said.

The deadline for bids is 3.30 p.m. local time on July 29, the Accra-based bank said in a notice published in the Daily Graphic today.

The West African nation’s central bank said on June 8 it was “not likely” another three-year bond would be sold this year after the European debt crisis meant buyers demanded highest interest rates.

This is fourth sale of the bonds this year. In January, Ghana auctioned its first three-year, fixed-rate bonds in more than a year following a decline in consumer-price inflation and a steadying of the domestic currency, the cedi. Demand was almost double the 200 million cedis offered, the bank said.

A second, 300-million cedi bond sold in March was also oversubscribed, while 87 percent of the 250 million cedis of three-year securities offered at a June 3 sale were sold.

Ghana had held off on selling any bonds apart from its weekly auctions of Treasury bills as the economy struggled with consumer-price inflation which reached a five-year high of 20.7 percent in June 2009.

The central bank began selling the longer-dated bonds as inflation slowed, declining first time below 10 percent since December 2007 to 9.5 percent in June, the Ghana Statistical Service said on June 14.