Finance Ministry, BoG Urged To Issue US$2billion Bond For Agro And Industrial Investment To Stabilise Cedi

Ken Ofori Atta

Ghana needs not less than US$2billion to enable it fully complete the agriculture and industrialization value chain. This would help the country to develop its raw material base, add value to its products and to remain competitive on the export market.

ADI is very optimistic that this support to the agro and industry sector would help to stem the speed depreciation of the country’s fiat currency, the cedi.

The country’s industry is about 80 percent agriculture base from small to medium enterprises which could be scaled up just like the farmer inputs “so we can add value to modern emerging non-traditional commodities such as cashew, dry mangoes, dry pineapples, avocado, coconut, sweet potato among others and also the expansion of the cocoa processing industry, then we can see the whole agriculture and industrialization value chain full completed” disclosed by the Alliance for Development and Industrialization, (ADI), a policy think tank.

ADI believes an expanded and reliable production of agricultural produce will form a very important base for the industrialisation drive, create modern jobs, expand the exports base, and reduce the amount of foreign exchange spent on food imports.

The ADI is calling on the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana as matter of urgency to issue a US$2 billion bonds to support this initiative for both short and long term commodities. This bonds could be preferably be sourced from both the local and international markets.

Ghana spends over US$2 billion every year importing food. For example, the country imports over a billion dollars of rice, US$ 320 million of sugar, and US$374 million of poultry. Most of these could be produced here; creating jobs and saving foreign exchange.

According to the ADI, the US$2 billion investment into the agriculture sector would improve the income levels of rural people since there is an industrial and international demand for their non-traditional commodities such sweet potato, avocado, tiger nuts among others.

“We are also asking the International Donor Agencies to support farmers that are into coconut farming, sweet potato, vegetables etc as it would save the economy as demand from Europe is on the rise.

There is the need to establish special ports receiving in both the European and the UK markets for them to be ready to receive the commodities for re-distribution”, the statement said.