The
Gambia’s currency, Dalasi, has depreciated against the US Dollar and Pound
Sterling by 6.86 per cent and 4.64 per cent respectively, Governor of the
Central Bank of the Gambia, Mr. Amadou Colley, said.
Speaking
on Friday May 11, 2012 during the quarterly press conference of the Monetary
Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of the Gambia, Governor Colley
pointed out that year-on-year to end April 2012, the currency appreciated against
the Euro by 4.49 percent, and in nominal effective exchange rate terms, it
depreciated by 5 percent.
According
to him, as at end-March 2012, the domestic debt increased to D9.2 billion equivalent
to 31.3per cent of Gross Domestic Product.
Treasury bills and Sukuk-Al-Salaam, which together accounts for 78.8 per
cent of the debt stock, rose to D7.43 billion compared to D6.0 billion in March
2011.
He
said the yield on maturity of both the Treasury bills and Sukuk-Al-Salaam
increased with the exception of the 364 day bills which declined to 12.80
percent from 13.09 percent in March2011.
“Provisional
balance of payments estimate indicate an overall surplus of US$31.73 million in
2011, but lower than the US$86.52 million in 2010,” he noted.
He
further said as at end-March 2012, gross international reserves totaled
US$1820.0 million equivalent to 5.0 months of import cover, saying that volume
of transactions in the foreign exchange market, measured by aggregate purchases
and sales, declined to US$1.45billion in the year to end-April 2012 from
US$1.59 billion a year earlier.
He
cited that the key financial soundness indicators show that the banking
industry remains sound with sufficient capital and liquidity adding that the
industry’s risk-weighted capital adequacy ratio increased slightly to 26.6
percent at end March 2012 from 25.9 percent in March 2011 and significantly
above the statutory requirement of 10.0 percent.
He
said: “The assets of the (banking) industry increased to D18.8 billion in March
2012, or 4.5 per cent from a year ago. Loans and advances, accounting for 30
per cent of assets, decreased to D5.3 billion or 2.4 per cent from a year ago.
However,
Central Bank Governor observed that non performing loans ratio decreased
significantly to 8.7 per cent in March 2012 compared to 13.3 per cent in March
2011.
Inflation
decelerated
End-period
inflation, measured by the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI), decelerated to
3.9 percent at end March 2012 from 5.4 per cent in March 2011, the governor
said.
He
also said the average inflation (12 month moving average) was at a 12 month low
of 4.5 per cent compared to 5.4 per cent in March 2011. He explained that this was primarily the
result of the moderation in food price inflation.
Consumer
food inflation, the most important determination of headline inflation,
decelerated from 7.5 per cent in March 2011 to 4.8 per cent in March 2012 while
non food consumer price inflation rose to 2.7 per cent from 2.0 per cent in
March 2011.
He
added that core inflation which excludes the prices of energy, utilities and
volatile food items, decreased to 4.0 per cent relative to the 5.3 per cent in
March 2011.
However,
Governor Colley said inflation is expected to remain below the target of 5 per cent,
owing to the subdued state of the economy and moderation in the growth of the
monetary aggregates. Source: The Voice
Written by Modou S. Joof
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