Accra
bourse records gains under bearish sentiments
Educate
shareholders on regulations - Rural Banks urged
Accra
(Greater Accra) 17 August 2000
The Ghana
Association of Bankers, on Wednesday August 16, announced the following average
inter bank exchange rates of the cedi to the dollar and derived rates for other
major foreign currencies:
Currency Buying Selling
US Dollar 6,229.73 6,434.45
Pound
Sterling 9,351.45 9,665.19
French
Franc 866.28 894.67
Swiss Franc 3,637.70 3,756.10
Deutsche
Mark 2,904.63 3,001.14
Canadian
Dollar 4,205.54 4,341.37
Japanese
Yen 57.27 59.15
Dutch
Guilder 2,578.57 2,663.10
S/African
Rand 898.50 926.81
Euro 5,679.59 5,864.44
CFA Franc 8.66 8.95
Naira 54.49 56.28
Ecowas/WAUA
7,742.13 --------
GRi.../
Accra
(Greater Accra) 17 August 2000
The
Ghana Stock Market had a breather on Wednesday when a five-cedi gain by SSB
pushed the GSE-All share Index up by 0.19 points, but the market was still
dominated by bearish sentiments.
The
index, which lost 0.58 points on Monday closed firmer at 820.02 points, up from
the previous close of 819.83 points.
The
market capitalization and the change for the year to date were equally stronger
at 3,570.58 billion cedis and 11.39 per cent respectively.
There
was only one price change. SSB bank gained five cedis to close at 1,995 cedis.
Despite
the gains, however, as many as 12 equities returned negative pressure while eight
others had no pressure at all.
Out
of the 23 listed equities, 16 had no bids nor did they make any sales. The
remaining seven, which made sales could manage a mere 33,800 compared to 65,400
shares on Monday. Accra Brewery Limited, Camelot, Enterprise Insurance Company
(EIC) Super Paper Products Company (SPPC) had neither offers nor bids. Offers fell from 2.02 million shares to 1.5
million shares.
Bids
closed at 34,900, down from 71,900 shares at the previous session. Below are
the closing prices of listed equities in cedis:
ABL 620
AGC 18,600
ALW 2,600
BAT 440
CFAO
38
EIC 1,880
FML 1,200
GBL 1,350
GCB 1,000
GGL 990
HFC 950
MGL 200
MLC 150
MOGL
17,500
PAF 300
PBC 520
PZ 800
SCB
22,000
SPPC 155
SSB 1,995 +5
UNIL
1,800
UTCE
125
CMLT 425
GRi.../
Awutu-Bawjiase
(Central Region) 17 Aug 2000
Directors
and management of rural and community banks have been urged to educate their
shareholders on banking laws and regulations.
This
would help in avoiding "unproductive criticisms" during annual
general meetings.
Mr
Emmanuel Asiedu-Mante, Head of the Banking Supervision Department of the Bank
of Ghana (BOG), said it would also enable them to focus on issues to promote
their banks.
Speaking
at the 10th annual general meeting of the Awutu-Bawjiase Area Rural Bank at
Bawjiase, Mr Asiedu-Mante said that even though Ghanaians have accepted the
challenge to buy shares and save with rural and community banks, majority of
them do not know the difference between savings and shareholdings.
There
is the need to enlighten them on banking laws and regulations, he said.
Mr
Asiedu-Mante expressed optimism that if they get to know the procedures
properly, they would appreciate that as shareholders they own their banks and
would work hard to ensure their rapid growth.
Mr
Emmanuel Osei, Chairman of the Board of Directors, said the bank granted loans
totalling 678,070,400 cedis to about 3,000 customers to promote agriculture,
cottage industries, trading, transport and education in 1999.
He
said that out of the amount, 569,644,533 cedis have been recovered adding that
efforts are underway to recoup the rest.
GRi.../