The Bank of Ghana will auction US$715 million in Forward Foreign Exchange Auctions in the whole of 2020.

The months with the expected highest auctions of US$80 million each are January, February and March 2020.

In accordance with the Foreign Exchange Forward Auction guidelines issued on the 23 September 2019, the Bank of Ghana said bids are invited as per the prescribed format to purchase/sell US dollar against Ghana cedi separately on each auction date.

The move to auction such an amount of US dollars is expected to help arrest, to some extent, the perennial depreciation of the cedi.

Following recent trends, the cedi is expected to depreciate by about 13% to the US dollar in 2019.

The Bank of Ghana, in October, began a Foreign Exchange Forward Rate Auction limited to 7-day, 15-day, 30-day, 45-day, 60-day and 75-day tenors. 

In addition to the auction guidelines, all Authorised Foreign Exchange Dealer Banks were to comply with the provisions of the Code of Conduct for the Interbank Foreign Exchange market in Ghana. 

Since the introduction Foreign Exchange Forward Rate Auction, it has been recording a significant oversubscription.