The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has injected close to $10 billion into the foreign exchange market since January 2025 in a bid to stabilise the cedi.
This amount represents the total dollars sold to commercial banks and businesses to meet their foreign currency needs, a measure that has played a key role in supporting the local currency.
The intervention, which spans January through the first week of December 2025, is part of what officials describe as a “dollar intervention.” Sources close to the Central Bank told Joy Business that the move is aimed at meeting market demand for dollars rather than serving as a programme solely to defend the cedi.
Funding the Intervention
The initiative has been financed through the BoG’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme, which has generated significant windfall gains from rising gold prices. These proceeds have been channelled into dollar auctions to support the market.
Officials emphasise that the programme has been executed without draining Ghana’s reserves. The structure of the support ensures that debt obligations and reserve accumulation efforts remain intact. Portions of the gold windfall have been directed toward reserve build-up, upcoming debt repayments, and forex market support.
According to the Central Bank’s latest Economic and Financial Data, Ghana’s international reserves stood at $9.1 billion in December 2024. By October 2025, reserves had risen to $11.4 billion, with strong indications that the year could close above $12 billion.
Market analysts argue this demonstrates that the intervention has not eroded reserves. In October alone, BoG injected $1.15 billion under its FX Intermediation Programme, with auctions conducted on a market-neutral, spot basis.
Observers believe these measures contributed to the cedi’s record appreciation in October 2025. Data from the Bank show the currency gained 13.9% against the dollar by the end of October and 32.2% year-to-date.
New FX Operations Framework
In November, the Bank of Ghana announced that its Board had approved a new Foreign Exchange Operations (FX) Framework to clarify the principles guiding its forex activities.
The regulator explained that the framework strengthens its commitment to macroeconomic stability under the inflation-targeting regime and a flexible, market-driven exchange rate system.
The framework is designed to achieve three main objectives:
- Support reserve accumulation to provide a buffer against external shocks.
- Reduce excessive short-term volatility in the FX market by addressing disorderly conditions without undermining exchange rate flexibility.
- Intermediate FX flows in a market-neutral manner, using inflows from the Gold Purchase Programme or export surrender requirements.
This means the BoG will channel forex inflows into the market transparently and in an orderly fashion, without attempting to set exchange rate levels.
Future interventions, according to the Bank, will follow a “structured discretion-under-constraint” approach. This ensures operations do not target specific exchange rate thresholds but instead address market gaps, such as the lack of hedging tools for major risks.
“Reserve accumulation and intermediation objectives will be achieved through transparent and well-communicated operations,” the Bank of Ghana said in a recent statement.
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