President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, has stated that Ghana’s economy is recovering faster than anticipated from the impact of novel Coronavirus pandemic.
According to him, the recovery is because his government knows how to resuscitate an economy back to life just as it did from 2017 when the economy had been stretched and was under stress by the then government.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo, made those statements when a speech was read on his behalf by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta as his opening remarks at the 9th Ghana Economic Forum (GEF) in Accra, on Monday.
The two-day event is themed: Resetting the economy back beyond COVID-19; Building economic resilience and self-deficiency, aims at finding practical solutions for businesses to recover from impacts of the pandemic.
“By dint of hard work and prudent management of the economy, we have had modest success in trying to turn around the fortunes of the economy and had become a country with fastest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), not only in Africa but across the world”, the President observed.
The President indicated that, the macro-economic indicators before the onset of COVID-19, pointed to the fact that Ghana had an economy with very solid fundamentals and was poised to make it even more robust.
“It is on the basis of this strong performance that led our country to become the largest recipient of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in West Africa, approximately 12.7 billion, since we came into government, resulting in some of the world’s leading companies like VW deciding to set up shops in Ghana. We look forward to collaborate with more Ghanaian firms so as to build World-Class Ghanaian companies into the future”, President Nana Addo, pointed out.
He said, the COVID-19 pandemic has racked havoc on every economy, including that of Ghana’s which saw a contraction of 3.2 percent for the first time in 37 years in the second quarter of the year.
“Every country has thus been required to implement various fiscal measures to mitigate the horrendous adverse effect of COVID-19. Therefore, we have started charting that path as recent data shows that the economy is coming back faster than earlier anticipated. Bank of Ghana data shows the economy is responding positively to the interventions put in place by Government” the President Nana Addo, boasted.
The President some 200000 owners of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have benefitted from about GH₵ 600 million under the Coronavirus Alleviation Program Business Support Scheme, to aid in the recovery of businesses from the pandemic.
“All these interventions are for companies to recover faster, pay debts and re-employ those they laid off during the pandemic and even employ more to build Ghana’s economy”, he noted.
The goal, President Nana Addo said is to transform Ghana into a regional hub for financial services, petrochemicals, logistics, manufacturing, education, fintech etc.
In view of that, he pointed out that his government was working closely with the private sector to create needed job opportunities for the people of Ghana and he is confident that the private sector will rise to the challenge.
“Government on its part will continue to build the enabling environment to provide the Private sector with the needed catalyst to become profitable and remain globally competitive”, the President assured.
In his welcome remarks, the Managing Director for GEF, Dr. Godwin Acquaye, said with the promising projections, 2020 was meant to be the beginning of new things for a prosperous decade, but then the world shut down due COVID-19 which changed the focus of the entire world including Ghana.
“But due to the interventions from government, the pandemic’s worst-case scenarios have been avoided, but the economy was not spared. Every facet of the economy was significantly affected, with tourism and hospitality suffering the worst impact of the pandemic”, he observed.
He was certain that, adherence to all the COVID-19 safety protocols, the virus will be defeated and return the economy to its pedestal of high growth, job creation and prosperity.
