AGI wants business environment improved

Nana Owusu Afari, AGI President

The Association of Ghana Industries has asked the government to act swiftly to stem the country's downward slide as an investment destination.

A recent investment climate survey ranked Ghana the 114th destination out of 133 countries surveyed worldwide in 2009.

In Africa, Ghana placed 20th out of 31 countries. This new ranking by the Executive Opinion and Global Competitiveness report of the World Economic Forum represents a 12 point decline in Ghana's placement same time last year.

The rankings for each country were based on 12 pillars of competitiveness which include basic infrastructure, efficiency enhancers, innovations and macro-economic stability.

AGI President Nana Owusu Afari tells Joy Business the government needs to act to stem the downward slide.

“Industry is not growing, we are importing more than we can export,” he said.

According to him, the situation has contributed to high inflation and instability of the currency.

“There are a lot of fundamental problems we need to draw our attention to, and that is what we are seeing in this report. In order words if we have to be competitive, we should look at the fundamentals that underpin our economic performances,” he said.

The AGI has long been pushing for a more favourable business environment than what currently prevails.

The association has stood against the high interests charged by the commercial banks on loans.

The average interest rate currently stands at 28 percent; this is perhaps the lowest in many months.

Whilst some banks such as the Agricultural Development Bank and SG-SSB charge customers around 24.5 percent as interest, others are charging as huge as 28 percent despite the recent policy rate cut by the Bank of Ghana.