GRi Business,
Economics & Finance 21 – 03 - 2003
He said the Golden
Age of Business declared by the President and the state desire for partnership
between local and foreign investors was a well-intentioned policy, which would
be pursued.
A statement signed
by Ferdinand Ayim, Special Assistant to the Minister said
the Minister made this known when a delegation from Global Response, a
Global Response,
already in the country, was a direct result of the President's visit to
The statement noted
that this was the first time that government was composed of individuals who
have chalked success in the private sector and are committed to translate them
to benefit the nation.
"The ruling
party is a pro- business and pro-private, we understand the need to create the
environment conducive enough for business to thrive so it can create work and
wealth for the people," it said.
The statement said
government would exhaust all opportunities available to the benefit of the
people, adding, "Government is to make the public service pro-business and
proactive to facilitate the promotion of the private sector".
It urged foreign
investors to have confidence in the government and the ability of the Ghanaian
investor to partner them for successful business. Samuel Crabbe,
Chief Executive Officer of Global Response,
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Accra (Greater
Accra) 21 March 2003- President John Agyekum Kufuor on Thursday, stressed the
need for a clear and dynamic set of ideas to motivate and activate the private
sector to exploit opportunities to maximum benefit on a sustainable basis.
"Government
will do its part by working to ensure macro-economic stability but it is
obvious that to make a breakthrough, we need a clear and dynamic set of ideas
to motivate and activate the private sector to exploit the opportunities to
maximum benefit on sustainable basis".
President Kufuor
made the call when inaugurating a nine-member Presidential Committee on the
Promotion and Revitalisation of the Industrial Sector on Sustainable Basis, at
the Castle, Osu.
He administered the
oaths of office and secrecy to the Committee that is under the Chairmanship of
Dr Kwabena Duffuor, former Governor of the Bank of
Ghana. The Committee is to identify and specify how
President Kufuor
said at independence, the nation had high hopes of rapid industrialisation,
unfortunately, the enthusiasm had not kept pace with the abilities and often projects
began with high hopes turned out to be unsustainable.
"The
countryside is littered with the remnants of factories full of inappropriate
machinery or where not enough planning had been done to ensure sustainability,"
he added.
President Kufuor
urged the Committee to make its recommendations realistic and sustainable far
into the future, adding, "government will play an
enabling role but it must be up to the private sector to lead the drive for industrialisation".
Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku, Minister of Trade and Industry, said all the distressed
companies could not compete in the industrial sector because they had no
working capital.
He said the
Committee would do its best to find sustainable financing from both internal
and external sources. Dr Apraku said the focus would
be on small and medium scale enterprises and urged the members to work hard to
produce results in the shortest possible time to enable the government to
address problems in the industry.
He said the
technical base of the economy for the industrial sector was weak and posed
problems for the macro-economic sector of the economy. Dr Duffuor
said most of the Committee's work would depend on the government and the
various ministries to assist the members to understand the problems better to
put up measures for the implementation of government to push the economy
forward.
Other members of
the Committee are, Professor Ivan Addae Mensah,
former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana
(UG), Ms Josephine Amoah, Insurance Commissioner of
the National Insurance Commission and Ernest Sampong Bediako, Managing Director of Ernest Chemists.
The others are,
Albert Essien, Managing Director of ECOBANK, Mrs Mary
Akua Edusei-Herbstein,
Managing Director of AKUABA Limited, Dr Boye Occansey, Director-General of the Private Enterprises
Foundation (PEF), Prosper Adabla, Chairman of the
Board of Directors of Network Knitwear Fabrics Limited and Yassar
Aschkar, Managing Director of Wire-Weaving Limited.
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She should, in
addition, explore other business opportunities in shipping; road haulage;
insurance services among other things to enable her take the maximum business
advantage of the conflict situation in
These were part of
key recommendations of a report on market access and facilitation for selected
Ghanaian products in
The Ghana Export
Promotion Council commissioned the report to collect relevant marketing
information towards the establishment of basic market requirements and
environments in the three countries.
The report asked
trade promotion organisations and associations in the country to co-operate
with leading banks in the Sub-Region, particularly ECOBANK to organise special
training programmes to inform and educate economic operators about trade
documentation and banking.
It also tasked the
GEPC to organise special seminars on packaging and labelling, costing and
pricing for exporters to adequately prepare them for a possible contact
promotion programme.
The GEPC should
liaise with the President's Special Initiative Secretariat and other
stakeholders to investigate and review the pricing of salt to render it
competitive on the export market.
Presenting the
findings of the project report to exporters and stakeholder institutions in
He said inadequate
marketing information, especially on the export procedure and requirements for
these countries, was a major hindrance that the project sought to reverse.
Oppong said, as part of the project, participating
companies would be assisted to register and obtain ECOWAS status for their
products. The next phase of the project would involve a contact promotion
programme and market access for participating companies to be identified after
the supply study.
Collins Boateng, Executive Secretary of GEPC, said the report would
be implemented to ensure that Ghanaian exporters took full advantage of the opportunities
in the three countries.
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"Unless the
tax base is broadened with revenue generation at a much faster rate than what
we are doing now, the nation will be in trouble," he said at a seminar on
the 2003 Budget held in
A statement from
the Ghana High Commission in
It said issues
raised by participants centred, among other things, on difficulties in clearing
cheques, increase in prices of petroleum products, development of private
public partnerships, the inefficiency of the telecommunications system, the
need to take measures to increase local production of rice and poultry and
measures being put in place to reduce poverty in the country.
Mensah appealed to
Ghanaians in the Diaspora in the finance sector to help build a strong finance
base for the country and emphasised that without it industry would be
handicapped.
He gave the
assurance that all foreign accounts would be protected and announced that
following Government's intervention the banks in the country had started paying
interest on foreign accounts.
"I, therefore,
urge you to consider increasing the level of your foreign accounts," he
said. On the proposed health insurance scheme, he said it would help eliminate the
trauma of having to find money out of people's pockets for treatments they had
not budgeted for.
He said although
some people might think it was ambitious for a poor country such as Ghana to
have a health insurance scheme, the alternative would have been worse for
people who required hospital care but had avoided going there because of
economic reasons.
With regard to the
HIPC, he said there was no need for people to sneeze at it. He said the initiative had been beneficial,
led to generous cancellation of debts by the donor community and the release of
resources for development in vital sectors, such as health and education,
especially in the rural areas.
Kwesi Abeasi, Chief
Executive of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, pointed out the Government
was becoming more realistic with the national budget, a trend, which, he said,
should give hope to Ghanaians.
"As realism is
injected into the pricing of utilities, distortions in the economy would be
minimised", he said. "The reason why we did not succeed in the past
is because the previous Government did not have the guts to take realistic
decisions," he said.
"It is
important for us to realise that when you have a Government that, at a risk of
being unpopular, is prepared to take hard but necessary decisions, then we
should all rally behind it." Touching on investments, Abeasi
called on Ghanaians to help promote investment into the country by helping to
create the right image and perception.
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