Tema port's new $850m container terminal opens — but who actually wins?
The MPS Terminal 3 expansion promises to halve vessel turnaround. Our analysis of the concession agreement shows it locks in a single operator through 2052.
GHS/USD
15.42
+0.18
GSE COMPOSITE
3,847.21
−24.06
COCOA (LCE)
$3,180/t
+1.4%
Business · Lead Briefing
After the cedi's wildest quarter in a decade, Ghana's importers are quietly rewriting their playbook.
A 41% year-on-year swing in the cedi has forced Accra's trading houses to switch to yuan invoicing, hedge in cocoa forwards, and — for the first time since 2019 — stockpile inventory against seasonal scarcity. Inside the new rules of doing business in Ghana.
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Across the desks
Reporting from the four corners of the country.
Four desks. Fourteen correspondents. One independent English-language briefing on Ghana, written for readers from Accra to Atlanta.
Inside the Accra gallery scene that survived the diaspora — and is now exporting back to London.
From Gallery 1957 to the new Nubuke Foundation outpost in East Legon, a generation of Ghanaian curators is reshaping what the global art market calls "contemporary African."
Cape Coast's year of the year-of-return hangover — and the lodges quietly thriving.
Five years after the fanfare, visitor numbers to the castles have plateaued. Three small operators tell us how they've built a sustainable trade from slow tourism, ancestral genealogy tours, and surf camps.
The IMF's ninth review is due in November. Inside the 17 conditions Ghana must still meet.
Beyond the headline deficit target, our team read all 142 pages of the latest staff report. Here's what the Ministry of Finance hasn't said publicly — and what disbursement hinges on.
Market Monday — Week of 14 October 2024
Cedi steadies as cocoa auctions reopen, but T-bill appetite signals deeper concern.
The cedi closed Friday at GHS 15.42 to the dollar — its strongest level in six weeks — as the Bank of Ghana's mop-up of excess liquidity coincided with renewed buying from cocoa exporters converting October contract receipts. The 91-day T-bill rate, however, ticked up to 27.4% at the latest auction, with under-subscription suggesting that domestic banks are quietly repositioning for a longer tightening cycle than the MPC has publicly guided. Cocoa futures on the LCE crossed $3,180 per tonne for the first time since August on the back of the reopened forward sales, but the Ghana Cocoa Board's decision to delay the main-crop light crop purchases by three weeks is a more revealing signal: there is simply not enough physical bean in the system to honour committed volumes.
| Indicator | Latest | Week | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| GHS per USD | 15.42 | +0.18 | +1.62 |
| GSE Composite Index | 3,847.21 | −24.06 | +412.7 |
| Cocoa (LCE, $/t) | 3,180 | +1.4% | +38.2% |
| 91-day T-bill yield | 27.40% | +34 bps | −210 bps |
| Inflation (CPI, Sept) | 22.8% | — | −3.4 pp |
| Ghana gold (US$/oz) | 2,684 | +0.9% | +29.7% |
Analyst note — "The cedi rally is real but narrow," writes Dr. Akosua Darko, GhanaFilla's data editor. "What we're watching is not the spot rate but the gap between the interbank and the parallel market — currently 4.2%. Until that converges, any 'stability' is statistical, not economic."
All Market Monday data
Field Report — Tamale, Northern Region
"The Savannah is not quiet about secession. It is quiet about a different kind of investment."
From Tamale to Wa, a new cohort of diaspora Ghanaians is buying land outright — not for farming, but for development. Naa Korkor spent nine days on the road between Damongo and Nandom, talking to chiefs, district planners, and the families now negotiating with strangers from London and New Jersey.
Read the field report
Podcast — Filla FM · Episode 184
This week on Filla FM: Why the diaspora is buying land again — and what the chiefs say about it.
A bilingual Pidgin English briefing. This week's panel: a returning diaspora investor from the Bronx, a Tamale-based land valuer, and the lawyer who wrote the 2022 Land Act regulations. Plus: the IMF's quiet warning on Ghana's debt sustainability, and why the new GRA e-VAT portal is already being rolled back.
- Ep 183 The cedi's quiet rebound — and who is selling the dollar 07 Oct
- Ep 182 Inside the Tema port expansion: a 30-year concession explained 30 Sep
- Ep 181 Cape Coast five years on: slow tourism and the new diaspora traveller 23 Sep