Ghana: December's producer inflation jumps to 10.5 pct

Ghana’s producer price inflation rose sharply to 10.5 percent in December from 3 percent the month before, the statistics office said on Wednesday.

The West African country is under a three-year International Monetary Fund aid programme to address financial problems that include high budget deficits and consumer inflation persistently above government targets.

Ghana’s utility regulator almost doubled tariffs for electricity and water in December in a renewed bid to attract competitive private investment as part of reforms under the IMF programme.

Year-on-year producer inflation for the utilities rose to 56.6 percent from 5.3 percent the month before. Manufacturing rose to 3.5 percent from 1.7 percent, while mining and quarrying fell to 4.8 percent from 7.3 percent.

On Monday, Ghana’s central bank decided to leave interest rates unchanged at 26 per cent citing the slow pace in consumer inflation, despite the country’s inflation rate ending 2015 at 17.7 per cent, far exceeding policymakers’ single digit target.

Once among Africa’s fastest growing economies, growth in the gold, cocoa and oil exporting country has slumped due to lower global commodity prices and a three-year electricity crisis that has crippled industry and raised criticism of the government ahead of elections this year.