The World Bank Group has announced that over the coming weeks it will be discussing with its Governors and Board of Executive Directors a 15-month crisis response financing package of around $170 billion to help countries address multiple overlapping crises. Of this, the Bank Group is working to provide an initial crisis response of around $50 billion by June 30, 2022.

Ghana’s moderate to high exposure to imports of wheat, edible oils and fertilizers from Russia has triggered increases in the prices of foodstuffs and certain commodities on the market. According to the latest World Bank Africa Pulse report, Ghana imports about 33% of wheat and a little above 20% of fertilizers from Russia, ranking it among African economies with high dependence on the European country.

The implementation of the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy) from 1st May, 2022 will boost foreign investor confidence in the short term, Fitch Solutions, research arm of ratings agency, Fitch has stated. It’s however worried that Ghana’s debt will rise because of the expected revenue shortfall in the budget, a situation that will impact on the cedi.

Fuel prices will remain largely unchanged or go down marginally, beginning 16th April, 2022, the Institute for Energy Security (IES) has said. “For the remainder of April 2022, with the 1.5%-cedi depreciation against the dollar, 1.06% fall in petrol price, 3.65% fall in diesel price, and 3.72% fall in the price of LPG per metric ton, the IES projects relative stability in the price of fuel on the local market”, it said in a statement. However, it said “some Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) may decide to reduce their prices marginally in order to increase their market share”.

News from the world of business.

Economist Courage Martey has backed claims by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and Bank of Ghana (BoG) that developments in Russia and Ukraine have significantly contributed to the spike in the inflation rate. General price levels of goods and services have gone up consistently over the past months to hit 19.4 per cent in March.

Prices of petroleum products expects to witness marginal reduction beginning this Friday based on data that Joy Business has secured from the Bulk oil distribution companies

Banks wrote off ¢349.36 million as bad debt in the February 2022, the Domestic Money Banks Income Statement has revealed. This is lower than the ¢364.46 million recorded in February 2021. The total provisioning comprising loan losses, depreciation, among others contracted in growth by 4.1% in February 2022, after increasing sharply by 62.2% in February 2021.

Government will borrow ¢4.59 billion as fresh funds in the second quarter of this year to finance part of its budget. This will however be higher than the ¢3.78 billion borrowed in the first three months of 2022. From the Issuance Calendar, the entire ¢4.59 billion is expected to be mobilize from the domestic market, though non-resident investors can take part in some of the bonds that will be issued.

Economic Advisor and Spokesperson for the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Gideon Boako, has justified the seeming silence of the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia on the state of the economy till Thursday 7th April, 2022. According to him, this was to avoid making a whole lot of noise at a time when the government was expected to be finding a solution to the economic crisis that was threatening the Ghanaian economy.