The CEO of National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, has announced that 35 Liqui ed Petroleum Gas Marketing Companies (LPGMCs) have submitted application to put up a gas station in their respective locality.

“After cabinet gave us approval to allow some categories of LPGMCs to build their lling stations, we made that announcement to the industry, and so far about 35 of them have submitted application.

Out of the thirty- ve, twenty-nine did not have proper documentation, so we have sent it back to them to make their documentation up to date and submit. About six have proper documentation and we have sent it to our regional o ces to physically inspect their site, and we will issue the license for them to operate,” he told the Public Accounts Commission (PAC) when a question on the construction of new lling stations

Trade experts, business executives, and advocates of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) from across the continent have expressed concerns about the slow progress on the rati cation of the Protocol on the movement of people.

The Agreement has, thus far, been signed by fty-four of the fty- ve African Union (AU)

The Ghana cedi has depreciated by a substantial 19.1 per cent to the US dollar this January [2023].

According to the Summary of Economic and Financial Data from the Bank of Ghana, the cedi sold at ¢10.60 to one US dollar in January 2023 on the interbank market, compared with ¢8.57 in December, 2022. The central bank, however, pegged the cedi depreciation to the American greenback in 2022 to 30 per cent.

Member States. Forty-four countries have deposited their instrument of rati cation, but only four have rati ed the Protocol on the movement of people.

Intra-African trade, currently less than 15 percent of the continent’s total trade, is largely sti ed by stringent entry rules making it strenuous for citizens to move from one country to another.

For the pound and the euro, the local currency lost 21.4 per cent

AfDB approves $50 m loan for ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development

maritime resources.

By Eugene Davies

Africa (MOWCA) is essential and efforts should be championed for its e ective and e cient

In a document released at the end of a three-day Africa Prosperity Dialogue held in Ghana from 26 to 28 January on the theme “AfCFTA: From Ambition to Action - Delivering Prosperity Through Continental Trade,” African countries are called upon to “accelerate the rati cation of the Protocol.”

The Protocol - initially contained in the 1991 Abuja Treaty - aims to facilitate and increase the movement of Africans within Africa, while enhancing their rights to entry, residence, and establishment in AU member states.

With more people able to move freely, countries will easily tap into a wider labor market to bridge skills gaps while trading across borders.

The Africa Prosperity Dialogue fo- cused on issues relating to AfCFTA rati cation, market access, dispute resolution, negotiations on Phase II of the Agreement, industrialization, private sector, innovation and technology, nancing and resource mobilization, partnerships for impact, and free movement of persons.

The outcome document also contains a commitment to “Ratify the AU Protocol on the Free Movement of people and select a champion to

In ation’s return from the dead has brought the era of easy monetary policy to an end. The US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and others are planning to shrink their balance sheets, but this is a process that will most likely unfold very slowly. In the meantime, the heavy lifting will be done the old-fashioned way: hiking short-term interest rates to rein in aggregate demand. But policymakers should be careful not to get ahead of themselves. The latest monetary-tightening cycle has been highly synchronized. While the Fed, the ECB, and the Bank of England did not all time, they have all implemented 200-basis-point hikes since September. And they have all used similarly tough language to a rm their commitment to reining in price growth. This uniformity is puzzling, given namics driving in ation across economies. Consider the impact of skyrocketing global energy prices. For net energy importers like Europe, this trend implies a negative terms-of-trade shock –import-price growth outpaces ex-