This economic situation was presented by the Governor of the Central Bank of The Gambia (CBG) at a press briefing held yesterday at the Bank’s conference hall.
In his presentation of the Bank’s quarterly Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) report, Governor Buah Saidy stated: “The Gambian economy maintained strong momentum, registering 5.3 per cent growth in 2024. This performance was driven by gains in financial services, trade, construction, and mining. Private remittance inflows and public investment also continue to support domestic demand. The growth outlook for 2025 remains robust, as reflected in the 6.2 per cent average expansion of the Central Bank’s Composite Index of Economic Activity in the first half of the year. Moreover, staff projected a real GDP growth of 6.4 per cent for 2025. Nevertheless, external risks pose significant challenges to the near-term economic outlook. This includes the ongoing trade fragmentation, commodity price volatility, and climate-related uncertainties affecting agriculture.”
While general inflation eased to 7.2 per cent in June 2025, “the lowest since late 2021”, the Bank Governor said it, however, increased a bit to 7.5 per cent in July this year due to a slight rise in food inflation.
“Food inflation increased to 8.5 per cent in July, from 7.9 per cent in June 2025, reflecting higher global vegetable oil and meat prices alongside seasoned pressures in perishables,” Governor Saidy said, adding: “Non-food inflation, by contrast, slowed steadily to 6.1 per cent in July, from 6.3 per cent in June 2025. The decline was aided by subdued global oil prices, as well as stable domestic transport costs and utility tariffs.”
He also said core inflation, which is measured by stripping out energy and volatile food items from headline inflation, increased slightly to 5.8 per cent in July, from 5.3 per cent in June.
On the outlook, the Governor stated, the Bank assessed the July increase in inflation as a “temporary deviation” from the disinflation path of prices and maintained “the forecast that headline inflation will converge toward the 5 per cent implicit target by year-end”.
“Nevertheless, this outlook remains subject to considerable risks emanating from the global economic environment, particularly commodity price volatility and the domestic fiscal policy path,” the Governor stated.
Upon assessing domestic and global economic conditions and near-term outlook, the Bank’s MP Committee decided to maintain the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 17 per cent, the Required Reserve (RR) ratio of commercial banks at 13 per cent, the interest rate on the standing deposit facility at 4 per cent, and the interest rate on the standing lending facility at 18 per cent, equivalent to MPR plus 1.0 percentage point.
