{"id":12417,"date":"2014-02-08T10:35:11","date_gmt":"2014-02-08T10:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ghana-limits-dollar-transactions\/"},"modified":"2014-02-08T10:35:08","modified_gmt":"2014-02-08T10:35:08","slug":"ghana-limits-dollar-transactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ghana-limits-dollar-transactions\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana Limits Dollar Transactions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

{{Ghana has defended its decision to limit foreign exchange withdrawals in a bid to halt the slide in its currency the cedi.}}<\/p>\n

Foreign currency account holders have been limited to withdrawals of $10,000 (\u00a36,000), which must be supported by evidence of an overseas trip.<\/p>\n

The cedi has fallen to a record low in recent days.<\/p>\n

Central Bank governor Kofi Wampah has also raised interest rates to 18% to attract more investment.<\/p>\n

Ghana is the latest emerging markets whose currency has fallen recently.<\/p>\n

The value of the South African rand has hit record lows, while currencies in Turkey and India have also been hit.<\/p>\n

Analysts say investors have switched away from emerging markets since the US Federal Reserve scaled back its stimulus programme.<\/p>\n

Ghana has also been hit by falls in the prices of its two major exports – gold and cocoa.<\/p>\n

The cedi has lost about 23% of its value over the past year.<\/p>\n

Government critics say the problems have been exacerbated by high public spending and mismanagement – charges the government denies.<\/p>\n

It has started to earn money from offshore oil fields but analysts say much of this is being used to repay foreign loans.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Sammy Darko in the capital Accra says the freefall of the cedi has led to desperate measures by government and even some of the clergy.<\/p>\n

Last week, renowned cleric Archbishop Duncan Williams prayed for the national currency to start rising in value.<\/p>\n

“I command the resurrection of the cedi,” he told worshippers at his Action Faith Chapel in Accra.<\/p>\n

Our correspondent says many Ghanaians are concerned about price rises, which will be made worse by Thursday’s interest rate hike.<\/p>\n

In addition to the limit of foreign exchange withdrawals, Mr Wampah said banks would not be allowed to grant loans in foreign currencies to customers who are only paid in cedis.<\/p>\n

“The main purpose of this regulation is to ensure that we continue to use the cedi as the legal tender,” he said.<\/p>\n

But one forex trader in Accra told our reporter that the limit would not be effective.<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{Ghana has defended its decision to limit foreign exchange withdrawals in a bid to halt the slide in its currency the cedi.}} Foreign currency account holders have been limited to withdrawals of $10,000 (\u00a36,000), which must be supported by evidence of an overseas trip. The cedi has fallen to a record low in recent days. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-12417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050232,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12417.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12417.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12417.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12417.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12417.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12417.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12417"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=12417"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=12417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}