ACCRA, May 10 (Xinhua) -- The stability in inflation outlook lately is good for the local economy and brings more hope to local businesses, economist Collins Appiah told Xinhua here on Thursday.
The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) announced on Wednesday that Consumer Inflation for the month of April had fallen 0.8 percentage points to 9.6 percent, relative to the 10.4 percent recorded during the previous month.
The GSS attributed the suppressed inflation generally to the 17.5 percent reduction in fuel prices during the month under review which forced non-food inflation down to 10.6 percent in April, from 11.8 percent in March.
"This marks a return to single digit inflation which has eluded us over a long period. The stability in inflation also helps businesses to be confident in planning since they are sure inflation will not increase beyond two percentage points any time soon," Appiah, Economic Advisor to Services Integrity Limited, a non-bank financial service owned by Ghana Armed Forces stated in a telephone interview.
The 9.6 percent inflation rate was the lowest since January 2013 when the West African country recorded an 8.8 percent inflation rate.
The Monthly Change Rate for the same month was 0.9 percent, compared with the 1.1 percent recorded during the month of March.
Ghana targets a medium term inflation rate target of 8.0 percent, within a band of plus-or-minus two percentage points by second half of this year.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Ghana has fixed its Reference Rate which guides commercial banks in fixing lending rates at 16.74 percent for the month of May.
