The Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) Special Drawing Rights (SDR) holdings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at end-November 2020 stood at Ghs 242.39 million ($42.2 million).
At end-November 2019, the BoG’s SDR holdings with the IMF stood at Ghs 76.18 million ($13.3 million).
The Bank’s Ghs 242 million ($42.2 million) SDR holdings for end-November 2020 when compared to that of end-November 2019, represents a 318 percentage points increment on a year-on-year basis.
Special Drawing Rights (SDR) are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the International Monetary Fund.
SDRs are units of account for the IMF, and not a currency per se. They represent a claim to currency held by IMF member countries for which they may be exchanged.
The IMF’s SDR has an exchange rate of 1.38 to the dollar.
Aside the SDR holdings, other foreign assets held by the bank – with the exception of foreign currency with banks – recorded impressive growth.
Gold assets held by the BoG at end-November 2020 was Ghs 1.72 billion from an end-November 2019 figure of Ghs 1.39 billion.
Foreign securities held by the Bank also grew from Ghs 24.78 billion to Ghs 31.55 billion for the period under review.
Foreign currencies with banks however, decreased to Ghs 7.81 billion at end-November 2020 from a previous year figure of Ghs 10.8 billion at end-November 2019.
The value of ‘other’ foreign assets remained the same at Ghs 71 million for the period under review.
Overall, the total value of the BoG’s foreign assets as at end-November 2020 and contained in its Statistical Bulletin for November 2020, amounted to Ghs 41.4 billion ($7.2 billion).
An increase of some Ghs 4.2 billion from the end-November 2019 figure of Ghs 37.12 billion.
