Exhibition on Made-in-Ghana goods launched
Accra stock index
continues to rise
Accra (Greater Accra) 13 June 2002 - Mr Akwasi Osei--Adjei, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, on Wednesday observed that cross border trade offers a lot of opportunities and said that there was need for Ghana to increase volumes of goods in order to take advantage of all the benefits from the practice.
Launching an exhibition of made-in-Ghana goods to be held in Burkina Faso in July this year, the Minister said cross border trade also offered the opportunity of low transportation, complete knowledge of the market and fostering cultural relationship between the countries.
The exhibition is being organised by the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) and the Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC), to promote made-in Ghana products to Burkina Faso and to showcase the potential in Ghanaian industries and identify new markets for the products in the sub-region and beyond.
"The theme for the exhibition was "Advancing Regional Integration ugh Trade." Mr Osei-Adjei said currently Ghana exports wood, aluminium, rubber products, salt and plastic wares to Burkina Faso and noted that it was necessary for the government and the industries to invest sufficiently to increase the volumes and diversify products to promote business development.
He said Ghana had a framework, which sought to support any activity that would expand bilateral trade. He stated that the government aimed to use trade as an essential vehicle to bring West Africans together and called on the private sector to co-operate in strengthening the economic and trade relations between the two countries.
Mr Marc O. Yao, representative of the Embassy of Burkina Faso, said the two countries would do everything to promote business between them to boost their economies and provide employment to the youth. He urged businessmen and industrialists who would go to Burkina Faso not only to go with the intent of making profit, but also to seek business opportunities and invest in that country.
He explained: "For instance, Burkina Faso produces a lot of cotton but there is no single textile factory, which I think, should urge you to make a lot of impact by way of establishing yourselves there." Mr Yao also noted that the exhibition was timely because it came at a time when Burkina Faso was ready to study and patronise made-in-Ghana products.
Mrs Elizabeth Villars, President of AGI, called on government to eliminate all obstacles that confront businesses in the country to make it easier for prospective businessmen to establish in Ghana.
She explained that there were many Ghanaians who were business-oriented but were discouraged by the mental ordeals and agony they had to go through before registering their businesses. She therefore urged the government to give priority attention to the formulation of policies that would remove the bottlenecks and create the environment for employment for the youth.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 13 June 2002- The GSE All-Share Index, the benchmark index of the Accra bourse, rallied a whopping 17.46 points on Wednesday, to continue its recent impressive performance.
The index appreciated, although Mobil Oil Ghana Limited lost 179 cedes, to close up at 1,172.32 points compared to 1,154.86 points at the previous session, thanks to gains by the three banking stocks Total shares traded surged to close at 375,000 shares from a mere 15,600 shares on Monday, with Mechanical Lloyd Company selling 300,400 shares in block trade.
On the broader market, the three bank equities all registered gains. Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) was up by 101 cedis to close at 20,901, Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) appreciated 199 cedis at 2,850 cedis and SSB Bank gained 20 cedis to close at 3,620 cedis. Other equities that made gained were Enterprise Insurance Company 200 cedis at 4,200 cedis and British American Tobacco went up one cedi to close at 922. The only loser was MOGL, which was down 179 cedis to close at 18,821 cedis.
Market capitalisation was higher at 4,327.02 billion cedis as against 4,290.60 billion cedis at the previous close. The following are the last prices of listed equities in cedis:
ABL 345
AGC 18,800
ALW 4,100
BAT 922 +1
CFAO 60
EIC 4,200 +200
FML 1,540
GBL 900
GCB 2,850 +199
GGL 910
HFC 955
MGL 251
MLC 250
MOGL 18,821 -179
PAF 750
PBC 450
PZ 1,600
SCB 20,901 +101
SPPC 370
SSB 3,620 +20
SWL 285
UNIL 3,060
CMLT 437
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Accra (Greater Accra) 13 June 2002
- A stock analyst on Thursday predicted that share prices on the Ghana Stock
Exchange (GSE) would continue to rally for good end-of-year results if nothing
happens to throw the current macro-economic situation out of order.
The optimism of Mr Daniel Ogbarmey
Tetteh of Data Bank follows a series of gains in the stock index, mainly led by
Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB). The GSE index which ended last year at 958.89
points closed on Wednesday at 1,172.32 points. Change for the year, which was
about 11 per cent for the whole of last year closed at 22.63 per cent on
Wednesday.
Speaking to the GNA in Accra, Mr
Tetteh said the recent gains in the market index were due to the market being
"generally cheap", meaning the Price Earning Ratio (PE Ratio) of the
stocks is low. Low PE ratio determines the period within which or the number of
times an investor makes capital gains on money invested.
He said another indicator of what
a cheap market means refers to the number of years an investor needs to wait to
recover his investment in a stock. Of
the 23 listed equities, CFAO has the lowest PE ratio of two. GCB, British
America Tobacco Company (BAT), Mechanical Lloyd Company (MLC), Standard
Chartered Bank (SCB), SSB Bank Limited (SSB) and Unilever Ghana Limited (UNIL)
follow with PE ratio of three.
Mr Tetteh said the low ratios
combined with the macro economic situation have influenced investors to take a
serious look at the market. He said since the beginning of the year, a number
of stocks had posted interesting returns and were expected to produce better
results to push the rally in the share prices of the other equities.
The MLC has recorded 74 per cent
in returns since the beginning of the year, followed by GCB with 64 per cent
and SSB Bank with 59 per cent. The average PE ratio for all the stocks stood at
3.8, Mr Tetteh said, and added that some listed companies had released
impressive highlights of first quarter results, which had gone to influence
interest in the stocks to push prices up.
Mr Tetteh said the renewed
interest in the Ghanaian market was a mixture of both foreign and local
investors. "Basically, foreign investors dominated the market but at least
we know that some local institutional investors and a few individuals have
patronised the stocks due to apparent stability in the cedi and new confidence
in the market."
Mr Tetteh said investors were now
beginning to move back to the Stock Exchange from treasury bills. He also noted
that dividend yields for most of the equities were not exactly poor because of
the potential to produce better results to further push the price up. Mr Tetteh
reiterated the need for government to ensure that nothing happened to throw the
stable macroeconomic environment out of gear.
GRi../
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Accra (Greater Accra) 14 June 2002
Currency Buying Selling
US Dollar 7,781.00 7,962.09
Pound Sterling 11,438.07 11,709.05
Swiss Franc 4,970.70 5,084.70
Canadian Dollar 5,062.89 5,178.93
Japanese Yen 61.97 63.39
S/African Rand 765.34 780.71
Euro 7,339.15
7,507.24
CFA Franc 11.19 11.44
Naira 67.63 69.21
ECOWAS/WAUA 9,942.83
GRi../
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