Chinese accept cedi in Guangzhou, China – Ex-Ambassador

Former Ghanaian Ambassador to China under the erstwhile Mahama administration, Mr Horace Ankrah, has said the cedi was accepted for business transactions in certain parts of China during the presidency of Mr John Mahama, adding that he believes the same situation persists.

He was speaking to sit-in host Odehyieba Kofi Assuman on the Citizen Show on Accra100.5FM on Thursday, 19 December 2019.

Touching on Ghana-China relations, Mr Ankrah explained that Ghana and China have a cordial relationship, as the Ghanaian local currency was even accepted in certain parts of China during Mr Mahama’s administration.

“Will you believe that our currency, the cedi, in our time, certain places in China, Guangzhou to be specific, during Mahama’s time, accepted the cedi?” Mr Ankrah said.

“The cedi that Bawumia has destroyed, I’m telling you on authority that certain places in China, during Mahama’s time and the efforts of certain Ghanaians living in Guangzhou, you go to certain places, they accepted it and I believe that they’re still accepting it and, so, we have a very good relationship with China.”

Ghana-China trade is among the top three business transactions in the world and, therefore, if Chinese businesses accept the cedi as a mode of exchange for trading, then the demand for the US dollar should go down.

Meanwhile, the local currency has slowed its pace of depreciation against the US dollar in recent times, declining by an average 0.94% to the ‘green buck’ over the last couple of weeks.

According to data from the Bank of Ghana on the movement of the local currency, the cedi has lost about 13% in value to the American currency, compared to 8.2% the same period last year.

The 13 December 2019 depreciation rate is now the highest in the last four years although it is a few percentage points shy of the 15.7% depreciation recorded in 2015.

The dollar is trading at GHS5.54 on the interbank market but going for GHS5.79 on the forex market.

Some forex bureau operators told classfmonline.com that the cedi has begun gaining marginal value against the dollar but is likely to start losing value again after Christmas.