The Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana, says prices of commodities are likely to increase by 40 percent if the cedi keeps depreciating and inflation goes further up.

Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana, Sampson Asaki Awingobit, says if nothing is done to cushion exporters, they would be forced to increase prices to stay afloat.

“Prices have to go up, and they will continue to go up. Inflation is 31 percent so we can also increase prices by 40 percent. We have to hedge ahead, so we will be in our comfortable positions. We know it’s not okay to increase prices, but the current circumstances demand it until government does otherwise, that will be the way to go,” he told Citi News.

Significant increases in prices of transport and food pushed Ghana’s inflation rate to hit 31.7 percent in the month of July 2022.

This represents a 1.9 percentage point increase over the 29.8 percent rate recorded in June 2022.

On a monthly basis, inflation between June 2022 and July 2022 was 3.1%.

This was captured in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Wednesday, August 10, 2022.

According to the data, food inflation rose again to 32.3% while non-food inflation was 31.3 percent.

Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Anim highlighted the impact of the key drivers on the increase in the overall inflation rate for July 2022.

“We composed this from two perspectives, the food and non-food inflation and from a domestic and imported perspective. From the food and non-food inflation, we recorded food inflation of 32.3% and 31.3% for non-food inflation.”

“From the domestic perspective, we recorded 29.2% and imported inflation of 31.3%.”

He further indicated that Eastern Region recorded the highest inflation rate of 38.1% whereas the Upper East Region recorded the lowest inflation rate of 19.8%.

Bloomberg has also indicated that the local currency recorded a -28.82% depreciation to the dollar as of August 8, 2022.