The Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) Special Drawing Rights (SDR) holdings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the end of the first quarter of 2021 stood at Ghs 60.13 million ($10.3 million).
Compared to the previous quarter – Q4 2020 – the BoG’s SDR holdings decreased by some Ghs 88.18 million ($15.1 million), as the total SDR holdings at end-December 2020 stood at Ghs 148.31 million ($25.6 million).
Prior to that, the Bank’s holdings declined by some $16.6 million from Ghs 242.39 million ($42.2 million) to Ghs 148.31 million ($25.6 million) within the space of one month – November 2020 to December 2020.
Read: BoG’s SDR holdings with IMF falls by $16.6 million
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
Latest data indicate that the IMF’s SDR has an exchange rate of 1.38 to the dollar.
According to the BoG’s Quarterly Statistical Bulletin for March 2021, foreign securities, which also forms part of the foreign asset mix of the Central Bank on a quarter-on-quarter basis marginally increased from Ghs 27.6 billion in December 2020 to Ghs 27.7 billion in March 2021.
Other foreign assets such as foreign currency and balance with banks, gold and ‘other assets’ held by the BoG, also recorded a marginal increase from Ghs 247 million to Ghs 249 million at end-December 2020 and end-March 2021 respectively.
Also: BoG increases SDR holdings with IMF by 300% in a year
With regards to the value of gold assets held by the Central Bank, no significant changes were recorded as value of the Bank’s gold assets remained at Ghs 2.1 billion from December 2020 to March 2021.
Foreign currencies with banks for the period under review, decreased by Ghs 2 billion from a total value of Ghs 13.3 billion in December 2020 to Ghs 11.3 billion in March 2021.
The value of the Bank’s ‘other’ foreign assets expanded to Ghs 249 million from Ghs 247 million for the period under review.
Overall, the total value of the BoG’s foreign assets as at end-,March 2021 and as contained in the BoG’s Statistical Bulletin, amounted to Ghs 41.5 billion ($7.1 billion).
A decrease of some Ghs 1.9 billion from the end-December 2020 figure of Ghs 43.5 billion ($7.5 billion).
