Ghana inflation ticks higher in Oct

Ghana’s inflation rate rose to 8.6 percent in October as a weaker cedi boosted costs in the West African nation, reducing pressure on the central bank to lower interest rates. Inflation accelerated from 8.4 percent in September, Grace Bediako, a statistician at the Ghana Statistical Service, told reporters in the capital, Accra, today.

The Bank of Ghana left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 12.5 percent for a second consecutive meeting on Oct. 19, after lowering it twice this year, as the cedi weakened 6 percent against the dollar in the past six months. Inflation may accelerate after the government boosted wages by 20 percent and costs for water and electricity increased, Governor Kwesi Amissah-Arthur said last month. “Despite the moderate increase in inflation, we think there is a 65 percent probability that the monetary policy committee will keep the policy rate unchanged” at its next meeting, Yvonne Mhango, a sub-Saharan Africa economist at Renaissance Capital in Johannesburg, said in an e-mailed comment before today’s data.

Inflation has eased since reaching a five-year high of 20.7 percent in June 2009. A 30 percent increase in petroleum costs pushed the inflation rate to 9.2 percent in February from 9.1 percent a month earlier.