Ghana is still making preparations to launch a second Eurobond originally due in 2010, Finance Minister Kwabena Duffuor said on Tuesday, stressing that market conditions were not behind the delay.

Duffuor announced last October that Ghana was considering a second Eurobond by the end of 2010 to raise $500-$700 million after the country launched a debut $750 million bond in 2007.

There's been a delay but we are still working on it... we haven't suspended it, Duffuor told Reuters on Tuesday.

It is not a market problem ... We want to get the numbers right and then we'll proceed, he said, declining to give a specific date for the issue.

Its 8.5 percent bond has traded with a yield of around six percent since late last year, buoyed by the arrival in December of oil from its Jubilee offshore field.

Ghana's cedi, resilient through much of 2010, has weakened since the fourth quarter of last year, largely as a result of seasonal buying of the dollar.

This week it reached 18-month lows of just above 1.4900 to the dollar. Part of the decline is put down to a temporary pause in cedi-buying ahead of a three-year bond issue expected soon.

Ghana is not the only country in the region to delay debt issue plans. Nigeria now plans to issue a repeatedly delayed $500 million debut Eurobond on Friday after a roadshow in the United States and Europe.

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