Industries Demand Stringent Solutions To Economy Stability

Industrialists and businesses owners in the country have pressed on government to concentrate on stabilizing the Ghana cedi and reducing cost of borrowing to improve business confidence in the economy.

In the fourth quarter of 2015 business barometer report of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), AGI indicated that the confidence level of businesses in the country’s economy has reduced.

Business captains are of doubt and lack hope in the comments by the Finance Minister, Seth Tekper’s, claiming that the economy is picking up.

Speaking on Accra base radio, AGI Chief Executive, Seth Twum Akwaboah, says there are still a lot more that government can do to bring about the required confidence in the economy.

“We see some semblance of depreciation early this year and if we are able to keep it that way it will be great,” the AGI boss said.

Speaking on the same program, Economist Dr Godfred Bokpin, said it might take some time before some of the achievements that government is talking about trickle down to the micro level.

He however adds that government should not see the improvement in the economy as an end to the current challenges facing the economy and businesses.

Executive Director of investment consulting firm, C-nergy Ghana, Mike Cobblah, also believes foreign investors are e still sitting on the fence because they want to see the results of government’s policy interventions before they make a move.

He however maintained that some investors that his firm has engaged say the uncertainty surrounding this year’s elections has not affected capital attraction in the country.

The business confidence index dropped from 97.3 in the 2015 third quarter to 93.1 for the 2015 fourth quarter.

Presenting the findings of the report at a press conference in Accra yesterday, the Chief Executive Officer of the AGI, Mr Seth Twum-Akwaboah, said the drop in confidence in business had been attributed to the major challenges facing industries.

He said the major challenges that industries faced during the quarter included high cost of electricity, inadequate power supply and currency instability.

The survey focused on the current performance of businesses and their expectations for the next quarter.

To give regional analysis and enhance the value of the AGI Business Barometer survey, the fourth quarter report included regional analysis to give details on how the various regions performed.

A total of 507 businesses from the manufacturing, services and construction sectors across the country were interviewed for the survey.

The report indicated that 24 per cent of the business executives said their current performance was better than that of the third quarter, 45 per cent said their performance was the same while 31 per cent said their performance was worse.

On their expectations, 58 per cent said they expected improvement in the first quarter of 2016, 35 per cent said they expected the business situation to remain the same while seven per cent expected that the business condition would worsen.

“Employment levels within the quarter increased marginally with 34 per cent increase in employment”, the report said.

The report further mentioned high cost of electricity, inadequate power supply, unstable currency, multiplicity of taxes, access to credit and high inflation as some of the challenges industries were facing.