Ghana won’t benefit from Cedi devaluation – Pianim

A renowned economist, Kwame Pianim has described as valueless any attempts to devalue the country’s currency.

According to him, it will make no impact on our current state of affairs, adding that it will not bring Ghana any economic benefits.

This follows earlier calls by CEO of Dalex Finance, Ken Thompson for the Cedi to be devalued.

Vice President, Kwesi Amissah Arthur last year also revived the debate on the issue, when he advised West African countries to consider devaluing their currencies to ensure stability and speed up plans to form the single currency zone.

Some Financial analysts also believe that devaluing the Cedi would help boost the local industry.

The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Henry Kofi Wampah has, however, dismissed the calls for the devaluation of the cedi.

Speaking on Business Brief with Paa Kwesi Asare, Pianim said a country like Ghana, whose economy is commodity-based with fixed gold, cocoa and oil prices, will gain nothing from the devaluation.

“I don’t see the benefit of devaluation for a commodity-based economy, which is not manufacturing,” Mr. Pianim said.

Devaluation means official lowering of the value of a country’s currency within a fixed exchange rate system, by which the monetary authority formally sets a new fixed rate with respect to a foreign reference currency.