Ghana’s Cedi Emerges Best African Currency For 1st Quarter 2021, Naira Stagnates

The Ghanaian cedi has emerged as the best currency in Africa for the first quarter of 2021, according to data from Databank Research.

Ghana ended the first quarter on March 31st with a year to date appreciation of 0.06 per cent against the dollar.

While Nigeria’s Naira ended the quarter with 0.0 per cent, exchanging at N382.5 as of March 31 from 381.48 it opened the year.

The Ghana cedi was ranked among 15 important African currencies including the Egyptian pound, Nigerian naira and South African rand.

Speaking on the data, a Senior Economic Analyst at Databank Research, Courage Martey, described Ghana cedi performance as impressive which he says is similar to what it did in the first quarter of 2020.

“You will recall that in the first quarter of 2020, Ghana currency ended the quarter with an appreciation of almost 1.7 per cent against the US dollar and that made it the second most resilient currency in our basket of 15 African currencies, only behind the Egyptian pound.”

“It is quite impressive, against the fact that the pandemic has not yet given way so there is still so many uncertainties within the global financial market space,” he said.

Performance of some selected Africa currencies according to Databank

Ghana cedi 0.55%

Egyptian pound 0.18%

Nigerian naira 0.00%

Tanzania shilling 0.00%

Kenya shilling -0.31%