ACCRA, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Ghana’s central bank kept its main interest rate GHCBIR=ECI at 27.00% on Friday, as food price increases drove consumer inflationGHCPIY=ECI higher for the second month in a row.

While inflation has eased considerably over the year, the pace of deceleration showed some sluggishness since the last monetary policy committee meeting, the central bank said.

“Inflation projections show a slightly elevated profile driven by high and unstable food prices,” the bank said in a statement.

Year-on-year inflation in the West African economy, which is set to hold a general election on Dec. 7, edged up to 22.1% in October from 21.5% in the previous month.

The bank said it now expected inflation to reach its medium-term target of 6% to 10% in the fourth quarter of 2025, shifting forward from an earlier forecast that it would reach that goal in the third quarter.

Ghana, which is the world’s second largest cocoa producer, defaulted on most of its $30 billion external debt in 2022 after years of overstretched borrowing.

It is now close to fully emerging from the default after a long debt restructuring process.

President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government secured a 3-year, $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund in 2023 and is now on the final lap of a painful process required for the money to be disbursed.

Commercial banks have accumulated enough capital buffers to withstand the effects of the external debt restructuring, the central bank said on Friday.

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board is set to meet on Dec. 2 to approve the third review of Ghana’s $3 billion programme, which will unlock a $360 million loan tranche.

(Reporting by Maxwell Akalaare Adombila and Christian Akorlie; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian and Duncan Miriri; Editing by Kevin Liffey, William Maclean)