Ghana's central bank will discuss key rate in 10 days, governor says
In a statement released late on Wednesday, the Bank of Ghana said it would announce its policy decision the day after the special session.
The central bank's fourth rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee meeting for the year had initially been slated to start on July 28, with the rate decision expected on July 30.
At a Thursday event in the capital, Accra, the central bank governor said that members of the MPC had not discussed the policy rate at the emergency meeting.
They met to "review numbers and also take stock of some of the developments in the markets to get a sense of what is going on and what our options are ahead of their meeting," Asiama said.
The governor added that the Monetary Policy Committee will reconvene in 10 days to work on a policy statement.
The Bank of Ghana last held a scheduled MPC meeting in May, where it opted to maintain the policy rate at 28.0%, maintaining its tight monetary policy as inflationary pressures continued to ease due to exchange rate stability and fiscal consolidation.
Ghana's consumer price inflation slowed for the sixth month in a row to 13.7% in June, its lowest level since 2021, while the bellwether producer price inflation fell to 5.9% year-on-year in June compared with 10.2% the previous month.
The finance minister is expected to present the cocoa-, gold-, and oil-producing West African nation's mid-year fiscal policy review on July 24.
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ECB's Cipollone says euro zone inflation risks balanced, newspaper reports
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Plus, he said, 'the average cost of groceries in New York City is 18% higher than the national average.' But could city-owned grocery stores really lower the cost of food? According to many experts, the idea isn't as out there as it might seem. While Mamdani's proposal might feel novel, there's plenty of precedent for state-supported food infrastructure. According to Anna Chworow, deputy director of the UK-based non-profit Nourish Scotland, the 20th century was full of these kinds of initiatives: wartime Britain had 'British restaurants', a chain of over 2,000 restaurants that served price-capped meals, and Poland had 'milk bars', subsidized cafeterias where meals cost two-thirds or half of what they might at a traditional restaurant. Similar establishments are starting to pop up today in India, Turkey, Indonesia, China, Mexico and Brazil, said Chworow, whose organization put out a recent report on the subject. These kinds of establishments have often been very well-received by the communities they serve. One operator of a milk bar in Warsaw told Chworow of a community that, upon hearing that their local milk bar would no longer be funded by the government, staged a protest by taking over the kitchen. 'There was a real sense of civic activism around keeping that place open,' Chworow said. Closer to home, 'public options have been part of the fabric of this nation since its founding, between the postal service, public libraries, and public parks,' said Margaret Mullins, director of public options and governance at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. In fact, NYC already has six grocery stores that enjoy government support in the form of steep rent discounts, including Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side, through the city's Economic Development Corporation. 'Sometimes in places where the private market won't step in, the public can and should,' Mullins said. 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'Finally, we had to say, 'You know what, no one's coming. Cavalry is not coming. We're going to have to take care of this ourselves,'' Overstreet said. Overstreet spent eight years trying to solve the grocery problem in her district, which included spearheading partnerships with public schools and local churches where people could pick up food. Today, she's proud to be bringing a new, full-size grocery store to her district with the backing of Invest Atlanta, the official economic development authority of the city, in partnership with Savi Provisions, a specialty private grocer. The resulting public-private partnership isn't an exact parallel for the municipally owned stores that Mamdani has proposed for New York, but it's a reminder that when the private market left to its own devices is failing a community, government officials can find creative ways to step in. 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Schweitzer, who has written extensively about how to make a public grocery sector work, also recommends looking to successful grocery store chains for cues. Operating like Aldi (which is to say, opening lots of smaller stores with a limited assortment) or Costco (which is to say, operating as a warehouse store; 'literally a distributor that sells to the public'), he said, could help make municipal grocery stores a success. Lastly, noted Caruso, it was worth reminding community members that such an initiative will take time to realize. Overstreet noted that it took her eight years of work to get the new grocery store in her district under way. The historical precedent, efforts in other cities, and parallels with the US commissary system of course don't prove that New York's attempts will be successful. Municipal grocery stores will have to battle many of the same problems that have sunk hundreds of private grocery stores in the city in recent years. 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