PRESIDENT NANA Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Wednesday told the plenary session of the 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) that Ghana’s economy was on course with the introduction of strategic programmes initiated by his administration.
He said the New
Patriotic Party (NPP) administration was able to achieve such feat in less than
three years after it took over power from the previous administration.
The President
said Ghana was taking a cue from what transpired between 1965 and 1990 when the
East Asian Miracle happened in some 23 East Asian countries, largely on their
promotion of the private sector.
“We, in Ghana,
are taking steps to put our country onto a similar path. Maintaining a stable
macro-economy is fundamental to attracting private sector investment,” he
emphasised adding that government was committed to pampering the private sector
to lead in the creation of jobs and economic freedom.
President
Akufo-Addo noted that government had been able to implement tax cuts and
incentives to spur the speedy development of Ghana’s private sector.
The IMF has
forecast that Ghana’s economy will grow fastest in the world for 2019.
The President
stressed that had led, in his time as President, “to some of the world’s
largest vehicle manufacturing companies signaling their intention to set up
assembly plants in the country, with global energy giants investing in the
development of our considerable oil and gas deposits, and the establishment of
the first Artificial Intelligence Centre in Africa by Google in Ghana. Their
decision to operate in Ghana is for good reason.”
He added that his
administration was, among other things, taking advantage of technology to
introduce reforms aimed at improving regulatory processes, digitizing a lot of
transactions to make life easy for Ghanaians.
“We are embracing
fully the advancements made in the digital world to help drive growth and
increase productivity of our economy. It is time we also traded in the world
economy, not only on the basis of exports of raw materials, but also on the basis
of things we make and grow,” he said.
Courtesy call
At an earlier
engagement, Pravind Jugnauth, Prime Minister of Mauritius, paid a courtesy call
on President Akufo-Addo.
The two leaders
discussed holding the next session of the Permanent Joint Commission for
Co-operation (PJCC), which offers the legal framework for addressing the trade
and investment concerns of Ghana and Mauritius.
