Festus Poquie
Marginal decline in the value of the Liberian dollar in recent months has helped push inflation to a seven percent high.
Price pressures persist on account of increases in the costs of food, alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance, restaurants and hotels, other goods and services, the central bank said.
Inflation accelerated 7.5 percent +/-2.0 percentage points on account of expectation of higher spending in Liberian dollar during the festive season of December 2022, in addition to global inflation developments, the monetary policy committee said in an end-of –year statement.
“On end-of-period basis, the Liberian dollar marginally depreciated by 0.59 percent to L$153.77/US$1.00 from L$152.87/US$1.00 in the previous quarter.”
The central bank’s new leadership team “has done a remarkable job in bring stability and improvements in macroeconomic and monetary environment, which was challenged at the time currency, the central bank Governor Aloysius Tarlue told newspaper publishers Friday.
The Governor said growth will also be good. The Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP) in third quarter of 2022 expanded by over 6.0 percent, while annual GDP for the year is expected to rise above the initially projected 3.7 percent from the 5.0 percent recorded in 2021, the MPC said.
The west African country is emerging from a crisis in 2018-19 when $100 million of bank notes vanished from the financial system, causing more than 20% depreciation of the Liberian dollar against the United States dollar.
