The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has increased the amount of dollars it intends to sell to businesses, investors and banks in its Forex Forward Auctions programme to $775 million this year.
The amount represents an increase of $60 million compared to some $715 million sold by the Central Bank in 2020.
The Central Bank has also increased the amount of dollars it will be selling every month for the first quarter of 2021.
Increment in the BoG’s Forex Forward Auctions can be described as efforts by the Bank to deal with the usual high demand of dollars by businesses to finance imports for the first quarter of every year which usually leads to a depreciation of the cedi.
Last month – December 2020 – the cedi came under some pressure as it almost reached the Ghs 6 mark.
BoG has maintained that its Forex Forward Auction programme has helped deal with businesses trying to secure dollars now for future transactions as well as activities of speculators in the country.