The Bank of Ghana (BoG) ended 2025 with its international reserves at a record $13.8 billion, JoyBusiness has learnt.
Sources indicate that reserves could have climbed to about
$14.2 billion but for Eurobond payments made in December 2025 on behalf of the Ministry of Finance. Stronger-than-expected government revenue in the final quarter of the year enabled the Finance Ministry to make a $709 million Eurobond payment ahead of schedule, trimming the reserves to $13.8 billion by year-end.
Even with this outflow, the BoG added roughly
$5 billion to its reserves in 2025, one of the strongest annual build-ups on record. Data from the Bank of Ghana’s November 2025 Economic and Financial Data show that gross international reserves stood at $11.4 billion at the end of October 2025, up sharply from $7.4 billion a year earlier.
Market analysts attribute the robust reserve growth mainly to the Bank of Ghana’s reserve accumulation strategy and its domestic gold purchase programme, both of which they say played a pivotal role in boosting reserve buffers.
The record reserve level is expected to underpin the near-term stability of the Ghana cedi by bolstering market confidence in the central bank’s ability to intervene when needed. This reassurance is particularly critical in the first quarter of the year, when seasonal demand from importers restocking, banks, and listed companies paying dividends to foreign shareholders typically puts pressure on the currency.
Sources close to the BoG say measures have been put in place to manage these seasonal FX pressures and that they do not expect them to pose a major risk to currency stability.
Analysts further believe the stronger reserve position could support an improvement in Ghana’s credit ratings in the coming months, as it enhances the country’s capacity to meet external debt obligations. In 2025, the Bank of Ghana auctioned around
$10 billion to meet obligations to Independent Power Producers, bondholders, dividend payments, and other critical external commitments.
Despite these sizeable outflows, the reserve build-up programme remained on track, allowing the central bank to close the year with record-high reserves. The BoG also reported that the cedi recorded a cumulative appreciation of 40.67% against the US dollar in 2025, ending the year at about GH¢10.45 to the dollar.
In December 2025, average daily trading on the interbank FX market stood at $19.70 million, bringing total monthly trading volume to about $394 million.
Story by: Mercy Addai Turkson #ahotoronline.com